Thames Water should ban executive bonuses after ‘failing to fix leaks totalling millions of litres a day’, Wokingham Borough Council’s leader has said. 

Councillor Clive Jones, who is also Wokingham’s parliamentary candidate for the Liberal Democrats, is calling on the government to prevent ‘eyewatering’ payouts being made to the company’s executives. 

The Liberal Democrats are blaming Thames Water for residents potentially facing “weeks of hosepipe bans” after the company said it was “ready to go” with announcing one if a drought is declared. 

Thames Water’s strategy and regulatory affairs director, Cathryn Ross, told BBC Breakfast last week that it will “wait to see” what the government says and “will obviously consider” a hosepipe ban.

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Ms Ross added that the ban could “very probably” come into effect immediately if a drought was declared. 

If implemented, the hosepipe ban would affect 15 million customers across London and the Southeast. 

The water company’s bosses were awarded nearly £2.4m in bonuses last year, according to the party’s analysis of Companies House filings, which Cllr Jones has called “outrageous” considering it has “not bothered” to fix leaks. 

“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,” Cllr Jones added. 

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Thames Water says it’s doing “everything it can” to fix the leaks, which are resulting in the loss of more than 600 million litres of water a day – nearly a quarter of all the water it supplies – according to national reports.

Water companies have promised to halve leaks by 2050, which the director of policy at Water UK, Stuart Colville, says is “on track” to be achieved. 

Ms Ross told Radio 4’s Today: ‘We totally accept we need to do better on fixing leaks, 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.” 

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England’s water company bosses have been paid almost £27 million over the past two years, according to analysis of Companies House records by the the Liberal Democrats – despite reports showing a staggering 2.4 billion litres of water is leaked every day.  

Cllr Jones has said the money should be going into fixing the leaking pipes instead of company bosses “rewarding themselves” whilst residents “suffer from hosepipe bans”. 

“It is time someone stood up to these companies and demanded action,” he added. 

Thames Water was approached for comment.