THAMES Water wants to restrict the flow of water to non-paying customers.

The company, which is currently prevented on public health grounds from cutting off household water supplies, wants the Government to change the law to let it reduce the supply to a trickle in certain cases to “inconvenience” customers who refuse to pay up.

Currently there are 18,000 properties in Oxfordshire in debt to the company. Such a penalty is already in use in parts of Australia, where flow-restricting devices provide properties with just enough water to flush the toilet or fill a jug, to meet health and safety requirements.

Thames Water has written to the all-party House of Commons environment committee, which is conducting an inquiry into the Government’s Flood and Water management Bill.

The letter said the devices used in Australia “inconvenience the customer to prioritise payment of their bill, while still allowing a level of water to flow that meets public health needs”.

Thames Water director Richard Aylard said: “It’s worth looking at to see if something can be done, although there are practical concerns about how it would work, in terms of allowing enough water for hygiene, and how you fit these restrictors. “It would be an absolute last resort when everything else failed – and in each case we would need to get a court order, so people could make their case.”

Mr Aylard said non-payment of water bills across the UK cost paying customers an average of £11 a year.

He said: “A certain number of customers simply refuse to pay their bills.

“We can’t cut them off, so we’re drawing MPs’ attention to the problem of bad debt, which is a big and growing one.

“We need to sort out the ‘can’t pays’ – who we can help – from the hardcore ‘won’t pays’, people who put two fingers up to the rest of our customers.

“It’s not about those who can’t pay their bills. For anyone who can’t pay, there are various options.”

A spokesman for the Department for the Enviropnment, Food and Rural Affairs said the independent review into charging for household water was “specifically looking” at the problem of bad debt and was expected to deliver interim recommendations soon.

Tony Woodley, who last year won a four-year battle with Thames Water to have a water main diverted from beneath his home in Iffley Road, East Oxford, criticised the plans.

He said: “People should pay their bills but there may be circumstances where they can’t.

“As far as I’m concerned, water is a natural utility, that should be available to everybody.

“It comes from the sky, goes into the ground and Thames Water fill a big hole up and pump water to you, and want to charge a lot of money for it.”

Dilys Cale, 75, of Upper Road, Kennington, said: “I don’t think you should be able to stop people’s water completely.

“But there has got to be some way of making them pay, as it just isn’t fair on everyone else.”