Just had the leaflet through letterbox - from October this year Thames Water are responsible for 'private' sewers. The error made at Privatisation has now been corrected.

Excellent news... well, that is until it becomes bad news. But let us concentrate on the good news. Of course good news always kills off threads... so maybe somebody could pop up and put dampeners on it.

I'll try to keep the support of good news going then.....

This IS good news though.... having AGAIN spent a wonderful couple of hours at the weekend 'rodding through' my sewer I hope that TW are going to be able to deal with my more regular blockages in future... (I'll have to see if there's a link on their website and download and expand any pdf to 400% to check for the small print exclusion clauses...)

I'm the last house in a small cul-de-sac and at the bottom of a very slight gradient. Consequently the other property sewers all track through my front garden before they 'plop' (pun intended) into the main public sewer.

Normally this effluent travels in the pipe hidden underground but sometimes it comes up to say 'hello'. One of my neighbours (still nobody admitting it's them that's causing the blockage) keeps flushing their sanitary towels down the loo. Like big plastic bags they are. Constantly causing blocks which I'm having to deal with.

Not a pleasant job, but every few weeks I have to dig out the elbow length rubber gloves and chimney rods and push through the offending articles... I'll be happy if TW can take this on (although I somehow doubt they will.........)

Reminds me of some of the posters on here!!!

Not quite as straightforward as the OP says, but not far off.

The key word is shared.

The cynic in me thinks it's another excuse to put the bills up

Oh yes - £12 a year to start with.....

Spartacus cracked me up!

I'm sure they will try. But I'm also sure that as they should have been doing this all along, the Regulator will look after our interests and stop them trying anything like that. After all that's what a Regulator gets paid for isn't it?

That could turn into quite a bargain... I doubt even the most desperate navvy with want to dig your collapsed foul drains up for £12.

The regulator has already accepted that they will need to raise prices to pay for this immense addition to their repair and maintenance expenditure. It is nothing but bad news for those who are not on privately owned shared drains.

Immense addition - ha ha ha ha! This was a money grabbing scam right from the start when it was left out of the privatisation. You name me one other networked utility that gets away with this.

Even BT manage to look after the cable right to your network termination box. There are very few people not connected via a 'private sewer' - they are mainly ex local authority or large expensive properties.

I'm sure the Regulator has accepted - he always does! Its far too cosy an arrangement and we could use the cost of that 'see nothing / do nothing' outfit to cover this apparent extra cost.

Good news that the Government are making the water monopoly do the job they are paid for.

Thames Water reckon this will add around 40,000 miles of lateral drains to the 67,000 miles they currently maintain - a pretty immense addition in my book.


On the contrary the goverment is, in effect, contacting the water companies to do additional work and paying for it by allowing them to charge all sewer users for it, regardless of whether they use a shared sewer or not.

As one of many who does not even have the option of mains drainage I shall watch my water bills with interest in the hope that I will not have to pay a penny extra for this.

Are you claiming your wastewater abatement? - see here. I'm guessing from what you say that you're eligible and it's a reasonable guess that the extra charge won't be levied on anyone claiming it. There's also a surface water rebate that I guess you should be claiming too.

Its their job to keep the sewers repaired. Any big business can crow about the size of its operation. Useless information. The best test is an assessed cost. How could we get that - simple; my household insurance covers repairs to sewers, as I suspect most peoples does. Yes, I've had a few quid off this year, admittedly after asking. If you are wholly self contained sewerage wise - then you shouldn't pay an extra cent. If you think you are - challenge your bill.