Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake
Don't forget Wales is different - most of Wales is covered by a
non-profit company so there are no shareholders. You don't need a
licence or meter to use lawn sprinklers as you do in much of England
and any efficiency savings made in a year are identified and returned
to customers by way of a credit against the next year's bill. No part
of Wales has had a hosepipe ban for over 20 years and in real terms we
pay less today than 10 years ago.
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Wales just has a lot of water, as in general does the western parts of the country, so there is less to be said for metering, etc, there. S Wales suffered especially badly in 1976, but I think the money has been spent to connect S Wales consumers to nearby resources since then. Your bills may not have gone up so much recently, but they are still fairly high in comparison to most of the rest of us. It is probably related to the history of the timing of investments. I think the highest bills are in the SW of England, where the topography and distribution of the population results in much more pipe in the ground per person than any other part of the country.
Not for profit companies certainly mean that the political inconvenience of profit observed to be paid out to shareholders doesn't exist. Whether this actually reduces total cost is another matter. In general industry without a profit motive has in the long run proved to be inefficient, though it does not always have to be the case.