Thames Water chief government Chris Weston has apologised to prospects and promised to show the failing utility firm round.
“So, absolutely I’m very sorry about the service some people receive, but it will absolutely get fixed.”
It got here after a tense look in entrance of MPs from the Surroundings, Meals and Rural Affairs choose committee throughout which his personal bonus of £195,000 – which he obtained after simply three months within the position – was referred to as into query.
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Chris Weston seems earlier than the Surroundings, Meals and Rural Affairs choose committee. Pic: PA
The parliamentary listening to coincides with spiralling payments for purchasers, who face paying a whole lot of kilos extra for his or her water provide over the approaching years.
He defended the payout, saying he had joined the struggling firm in January 2024 as a result of it “matters to society”.
He added: “I think that within the first three months, I did make a difference. I started to put in place the new organisation structure, I started to give people confidence and reassurance about how proud they could be of the job they did and what we were setting out to do.”
Thames Water prospects have confronted vital service disruption in recent times, together with a boil water discover in Bramley, close to Guildford, final summer season and a 40% rise in sewage spills in 2024.
It has additionally struggled to lift funding, repay its debt pile, which now stands at £19bn after an emergency mortgage prevented it from working out of cash and getting into state management.
Additionally showing earlier than the committee was Thames Water chairman Sir Adrian Montague, who tried to reassure MPs that they might get the agency’s funds again on observe regardless of latest moments of close to collapse.
He mentioned: “The fact of the matter is, as we’ve noted on several occasions, Thames in the last year has come very close to running out of money entirely.
“There have been occasions within the final yr that we had 5 weeks’ liquidity – and working a £20bn company on 5 weeks’ liquidity, actually, it is hair-raising.”
