Southern Water boss told company is ‘complete failure and basket case’ in heated BBC clash

Southern Water boss confronted over 'awful' service in heated clashRadio 4, BBC

Transcript

00:00If your customers are sick of you, they think like maybe Jackie, maybe Nick and the people

00:03affected in that special needs school, they think your service is awful, they've got constant

00:07problems, their bills are about to go up and they've got nowhere to go, have they?

00:11That's correct, we are a monopoly, but we clearly work with our customers to form our plan,

00:15we're governed by a regulator offer who ensure that we're spending our money in the right areas

00:20and that's the process we've gone through for final determination to get that level of bid

00:25increase. We do not send the bill, that's something our regulators do and they look at

00:28all the things that have been asked from customers or from other regulators to ensure that it's

00:33fair and reasonable for customers. I think, remember at the end of the day, the last 10

00:36years water bills have been going down, if you're a council taxpayer or pay your power bill, that's

00:42gone up 50% in those 10 years. What should have happened is there should have been gradual

00:46increases over the last 10 years, which we, with our regulators, should have been increasing over

00:51that 10-year period. But with the greatest respect, what you've described, you've got a

00:55monopoly, a company that has chosen to lose tens of millions of pounds because of problems with

01:00investment, water shortages constantly, thousands affected, schools affected, shops affected,

01:05homes affected, this is happening repeatedly year after year and bills are about to go up.

01:10If you're one of your customers, you'd be absolutely sick of Southern Water, wouldn't you?

01:14You think you're a complete failure, a complete basket case, not providing value for money and

01:18frankly you'd want to go somewhere else and you're not allowed to.