Template Letters

To whom it may concern,

After careful consideration, I have decided I can no longer pay for the sewerage charge/wastewater management part of my water bill. Therefore, I have today paid the amount of £*** for the incoming water services, and I am withholding the amount of £*** for the sewerage charge/wastewater management, as I question the accuracy of this amount in consideration of recent reports about your actions.

Continuous media coverage, the known state of our waterways and OFWAT data confirms that your company is still behaving recklessly and ruinously to our environment by persistently releasing untreated sewage into our waterways. The Ofwat Water Company Performance Report 2023-2024 states:

“there has never been a stronger case for a culture change in the water sector. Companies’ failure to comply with responsibilities to deal with wastewater has already led to us proposing enforcement penalties”

I write now with a formal complaint. While my complaint is outstanding, I request that you do not pursue me for payment in any way. Please put my account on hold while my complaint is outstanding.

My complaint concerns your company’s grievous dereliction of duty, and of your legal and moral responsibility not to pollute our precious rivers and oceans. Enabling you to continue this seems now to me to be also an ethical question: I cannot continue paying for a service which is simply not being provided – that is, the responsible disposal of the wastewater from my property. Furthermore, my paying this section of my water bill supports the harmful and repeated practice of sewage dumping.

In a preliminary investigation, the Environment Agency recorded “widespread and serious non-compliance with regulations” and launched a two-year criminal investigation. The head of the agency suggested repeat offenders should face jail.

In 'Money Down the Drain, Raw Sewage on the Beach' published by Fideres, Chris Pine wrote: “We estimate that households purchasing UK wastewater services may have incurred damages since 2016 of approximately £163 million as a result of the water companies potentially abusing their dominant position."

“We also estimate that the same companies may have charged households more than £1.1 billion for sewage removal services, when in fact they have not safely removed that sewage, instead they may have simply discharged it into the country’s rivers and onto its beaches.”

Please note that I intend to take this complaint to the Consumer Council of Water (CCW) and further if your response to my complaint is unsatisfactory.

Yours sincerely,

YOUR NAME, CUSTOMER NUMBER AND ADDRESS

Use this template to inform your supplier you are escalating your complaint to CCW (after the supplier has resolved the complaint)

To whom it still concerns,

You have informed me that you have resolved my complaint without taking appropriate and proportional action to address the problem that my complaint is based on, namely your company’s grievous dereliction of duty, and legal and moral responsibility not to pollute our precious rivers and oceans.

Your response is completely unsatisfactory to me and, as I made clear in our previous communication, I have now been compelled by your inaction to escalate my complaint to the Consumer Council of Water (CCW).

I insist that you put a hold on my account for as long as the complaint is being investigated by the CCW.

Yours sincerely,

YOUR NAME, CUSTOMER NUMBER AND ADDRESS

Use this template to fill out the “How can we help?” text on the CCW complaints form – please customise with the date you issued the first complaint to your water supplier.

On XX.XX.XX I filed a complaint with my water supplier.

I informed my water company that I was withholding payment of the sewerage charge portion of my bill since they were not adequately providing this service. By adequately, I mean reliably and safely in a way that does not pollute our water systems causing catastrophic and potentially irreversible environmental degradation and life-threatening illness to bathers.

The company informed me that my complaint was resolved and closed it without taking any action to tackle the cause of my complaint – their inaction to prevent toxic discharges of sewage and chemical pollutants into natural watercourses.

I am extremely dissatisfied with their performance and behaviour in dealing with my complaint while ignoring its substance. I am calling on the CCW to provide a resolution.

Yours sincerely,

On XX.XX.XX I filed a complaint with my water supplier.

I informed my water company that I was withholding payment of the sewerage charge portion of my bill since they were not adequately providing this service. By adequately, I mean reliably and safely in a way that does not pollute our water systems causing catastrophic and potentially irreversible environmental degradation and life-threatening illness in bathers.

In Ofwat’s ’s own Water Company Performance Report 2023-2024, it is stated:

“There was an increase in pollution incidents for nine of the 11 companies in 2023 and only one company met the performance commitment level. And so it follows that customer satisfaction has continued to fall and is now at its lowest level since the measure was introduced in 2020-21.”

Additionally in February 2025 the Environment Agency stated:

“Work continues on our largest ever criminal investigation, to date, into potential breaches of environmental permit conditions by all water and sewerage companies discharging into English waters.”

In the same period, water company shareholders received profit dividends of nearly £1bn. It is completely unfair that consumers like myself should be footing the bill for a service that is not being adequately provided when it is clearly within the means of these companies to clean up their acts.

Fines for one company in this same period were equivalent to 2% of their recorded profits. This makes it financially more profitable to pay fines and continue to pollute than it would be to stop destroying these precious ecosystems. The burden of that falls on you, the regulator,Ofwat .

The company informed me that my complaint was resolved and closed it without taking any action to tackle the cause of my complaint – their inaction to prevent toxic discharges of sewage and chemical pollutants into natural water courses. Therefore, I escalated my complaint to the CCW to provide a resolution. They have also failed.

I now call on Ofwat to do its job and regulate these water companies so that they do not sacrifice nature for profit, safe bathing for shareholder holidays abroad and excessive executive bonuses.

Yours sincerely,