Thames boosts bill support for struggling customers by £110m

Thames Water has unveiled plans to provide £110m in financial support for customers this financial year. Added to money pledged for 2024-2025 will take its support funding to £240m and up its coverage by 53,000 households to 384,000.

Thames said, by bringing forward a change in eligibility criteria from April 2023 to December 2022, it had already begun helping customers suffering the pressures rising inflation. Households earning below £17,005 in the Thames Valley or £21,749 in London boroughs are eligible for a 50% bill reduction. This was increased from £16,480 in the Thames Valley and £21,111 in London.

Thames said it will introduce an additional means for customers to get support through its WaterHelp social tariff which is targeted at households whose bill is greater than 5% of their net, equivalised income which takes account of the differences in a household's size and composition.

It said this move will broaden support to include households with larger occupancy, potentially adding15,000 families to its eligibility during 2023-24.

And the company said it had created a new temporary support scheme, to be rolled out in “the spring” to provide will provide a bill discount of 25-50% for households whose costs have pushed them into a deficit budget. It will be rolled out in the spring.

Thames estimated the scheme will provide 10,000 with “a typical £200 reduction”.