Water industry financial bailout story is wrong

On Sunday 5th April 2020 The Sunday Times published an inaccurate story in its business section, claiming that the water industry is lobbying Ofwat for a financial bailout.

In case news outlets are tempted to write follow-up stories we want to make the following points absolutely clear:

• The Sunday Times story is wrong
• We haven’t asked the Government for a financial bailout; we don’t want one – and we certainly haven’t lobbied Ofwat about it
• Our overriding focus at the moment is to ensure water and wastewater operations remain completely reliable
• We are going to unprecedented lengths to support hundreds of thousands of household customers with their bills, as many are now in difficult financial circumstances