Water bills to rise for households in Bishop’s Stortford, Sawbridgeworth and Stansted
Householders in Bishop’s Stortford, Sawbridgeworth and Stansted are facing five years of spiralling water and sewerage bills.
Nationwide, industry regulator Ofwat says the average household bill will increase by £157 (36%) by 2029-30.
The average rise in 2025-26 will be £86 (20%), excluding inflation, with smaller percentage increases each of the following four years.
In the Stortford area, water is supplied by Affinity Water – the largest water-only supplier in the UK – while sewerage is the responsibility of Thames Water. Most householders receive a joint bill from Affinity.
In 2024-25, the average Affinity charge was £192. According to Ofwat, that bill is set to rise 26% to £241 by 2029-30.
Affinity said: “Following Ofwat’s final determination announcement, we are taking the time to thoroughly review the details. This careful analysis will ensure we fully understand the implications for our customers and the local environment.”
The combined water and sewerage bill levied by Thames Water in 2024-25 was £436 – a 35% rise to £588 in five years is in the pipeline. Thames told the Indie that details of its charges for the next financial year would be available in February.
Ofwat says investment is set to quadruple to justify the rises. Nearly 90% of the increases will meet new requirements set out by the Environment Agency, Natural Resources Wales and the Drinking Water Inspectorate.
Ofwat chief executive David Black said the new pricing plan “provides water companies with an opportunity to regain customers’ trust”.
He said: “Water companies now need to rise to this challenge. Customers will rightly expect them to show they can deliver significant improvement over time to justify the increase in bills.
“Alongside the step up in investment, we need to see a transformation in companies’ culture and performance. We will monitor and hold companies to account on their investment programmes and improvements.
“We have robustly examined all funding requests to make sure they provide value for money and deliver real improvements while ensuring the sector can attract the levels of investment it needs to meet environmental requirements.
“This has seen us remove £8 billion of unjustified costs compared with companies’ most recent requests. In addition, our approach to setting a rate of return has saved customers £2.8 billion.”
The regulator has already taken action against Thames Water, proposing a fine of £18.2m for dividend payments not linked to performance.
On average, Affinity provides 950 million litres of water a day to a population of more than 3.9 million people in parts of Hertfordshire and Essex as well as Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Surrey, London boroughs Harrow and Hillingdon and parts of the London boroughs of Barnet, Brent, Ealing and Enfield. It also supplies water to the Tendring peninsula in Essex and the Folkestone and Dover areas of Kent.
Thames is the UK’s largest water and wastewater company, responsible for the supply and treatment for 16 million customers in most of Greater London, Luton, the Thames Valley, Surrey, Gloucestershire, north Wiltshire, far west Kent and other parts of England.
