Thames Water should ban executives receiving bonuses, councillors say

Thames Water should ban executives receiving bonuses, a council leader has said.

Councillor Clive Jones has said the firm should stop the payouts after "failing to fix leaks totalling millions of litres a day".

Wokingham Borough Council heard the water company's bosses were awarded an "eyewatering" £2.4m in bonuses in 2021.

Mr Jones said the money should be going into fixing leaking pipes. Thames Water has been approached for comment.

The company's announced last week it would soon be introducing a hosepipe ban, but has yet to reveal when it will begin.

When implemented, the hosepipe ban will affect 10 million customers across London and the South East, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Mr Jones said company bosses were "rewarding themselves" while residents "suffer". 

He told the council an analysis from the Liberal Democrat party of Thames Water's Companies House filings revealed the amount spent on bonuses last year.

He said: "The worst part is, ministers are just letting water firms get away with scandal after scandal and residents in our area are sick of it.  

"These are the very same water companies which pollute our local rivers with disgusting sewage, harming animals and people swimming in them," Mr Jones added. 

Cathryn Ross, strategy and regulatory affairs director at Thames Water, previously said Thames Water was doing "everything it can" to fix leaks, which resulted in the loss of more than 600m litres of water a day in 2020-21, according to an Ofwat report.

She said: "We totally accept we need to do better, that's why we're fixing more than 1,100 leaks every week.  

"We are not where we need to be, we have a lot of work to do to fix Thames Water." 

Follow BBC South on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].