Troubled Thames Water has warned that by May 2025 they will have run out of money as debt ridden company is struggling to secure funding.
Thames Water is the UK’s largest water company and has a debt pile of over £15 billion and has just £1.8 billion from the end of June, compared to £2.4 billion three months before.
Chief executive Chris Weston said Thames had taken “informal soundings which have shown there is interest in the market.”
The new Labour government will be hit with a large scale industrial crisis if Thames Water fails to secure funding.
Whitehall drew up plans in the spring called “Project Timber” which could see the troubled company becoming nationalised.
Weston has said that it is “not in the interests” of their customers or investors if the company folds and is run by the government.
Communities minister Jim McMahon said on Tuesday, “We recognise that, over the last 14 years, frankly, the water industry hasn’t been regulated anywhere near as firmly as it should have been, and we haven’t seen the investment to deal with the sewage scandal.”
He added, “The days of putting shareholder interest above the national interest, frankly, can’t carry on and so we do need to look at that and Thames do need to look at their own house and get it in order.”
He was asked what will happen if the company falls into administration, he said there is “no programme of nationalisation for the water industry.”
He added that there is “no provision in law for a water company to stop providing water.
“We need to be very clear there is always a contingency in place.”
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said, “The Government has said in its manifesto that we will put failing water companies into special measures and they will have no choice but to clean up their act.
“We talked about giving regulators the power to block payment of bonuses to executives who pollute our waterways and impose automatic and severe fines on them for wrongdoing.”
