Thames Water was branded the ‘worst of the rotten apples’ as councillors called for an end to privatisation of the water network.
On Monday night (January 30), Oxford City councillors voted to demand the chief executive of the region’s water utilities giant meet with representatives to be quizzed about its performance on leaks, sewage releases and shareholder dividend.
It came just days after campaigners gathered on Port Meadow to demand an end to sewage being pumped into the Thames and its tributaries.
The council motion, brought by Green Party group leader Cllr Chris Jarvis and voted through unanimously at the Town Hall on Monday, also called for the system of private water companies to be ‘brought to an end’.
Mr Jarvis said: “34 years of water privatisation has been 34 years of disaster. This has been shown to be true time and time again.
“This is what you get when you run a basic service for profit rather than for people and for the planet.
“But while the whole tree of water privatisation is undoubtedly rotten, Thames Water is among the worst of the apples.”
Barton and Sandhills councillor Mike Rowley, who last year stripped off and took a dip in a Littlemore underpass after it was flooded by a leak, said: “I sometimes go swimming in open water. The irony is that thanks to Thames Water the cleanest of the many places that I’ve gone open water swimming has been Littlemore underpass.”
Mr Rowley, the Sheriff of Oxford, added: “Joking apart, it’s completely unacceptable that designated bathing places have got sewage in them thanks to what is not only the incompetence of the water company but the known lack of capacity of the water company systems able to deal with less than two thirds of the sewage produced by the population of Oxfordshire.”
Littlemore councillor Tiago Corais noted residents in his ward had ‘suffered much’ at the hands of Thames Water. Last year, water supplies were affected for days after a main burst near the Heyford Hill roundabout – leaving thousands of households in east Oxfordshire without water.
Council leader Susan Brown said the fact that sewage was being pumped into the Thames and putting the bathing water status of a Wolvercote spot at risk was unacceptable.
“It’s absolutely disgraceful that one of the very first tweets I saw on New Year’s Day was Thames Water telling us that they were polluting our rivers. Happy new year,” she said. The company had a ‘big, big job’ to convince councillors it was a responsible authority.
Following the meeting, a Thames Water spokeswoman said: “We’re committed to protecting the environment and keeping taps flowing for our customers across the South East and Oxfordshire.
“We have written to Cllr Susan Brown at Oxford City Council and welcome ongoing discussions with the council.”
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This story was written by Tom Seaward. He joined the team in 2021 as Oxfordshire's court and crime reporter.
To get in touch with him email: Tom.Seaward@newsquest.co.uk
Follow him on Twitter: @t_seaward
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