The Consumer Council for Water (CCW), consumer champion for England and Wales, has welcomed as 'common sense' new Government proposals for consultation on more widespread metering in seriously water-stressed areas.
Emerging findings from recently conducted CCW research show that 46% of people thought everyone should be metered. Only 5% thought that everyone should be charged on the old rateable value model - the system used for the majority of water consumers. Meanwhile, CCW continues to lobby for a fairer system to help those households who struggle to pay their bills. Larger households on lower incomes could find that their bills increase under metered charging.
Dame Yve Buckland, Chair of CCW, said: "These proposals show a common sense approach to metering. Widespread metering makes most sense in those areas which most need it: one size doesn't fit all water consumers. Metering is the fairest way to pay, but only 28% of consumers currently have a meter. But metering must be fair in practice as well as in principle. We will work with the water industry and the Government to make the current support offered to customers on low incomes more effective, and we'd like to see a scheme offering more substantial help. The missing piece in the jigsaw is for all water companies to demonstrate to consumers what they are doing to minimise leakage - and some of them already are - so that consumers can get behind them in using water wisely."
