Template Letters

Use this template to complain to your supplier and to let them know that you are withhold payment for wastewater services

Subject: [Water Company’s name] and water services to [your address]

To whom it may concern,

I write regarding [company name] poor performance on sewage treatment as documented in statistics reported by https://top-of-the-poops.org.

In 2025, [company name] had [X amount] of overflow notifications, with additional spillage of [Y amount] already reported in 2026. What is more, legal prosecutions against the company were brought on [insert details of any published incidents if available].

This is unacceptable, given that customers have been expected to bear the cost of necessary investment in infrastructure to improve matters. Bills have increased yet again this year, by a further [X%] in my case, so it is reasonable to ask where this money is going.

(I note from your Annual Report and Accounts that dividends of over [£ amount] were paid to shareholders in 2025, whilst the company’s CEO was awarded a salary package of [£ amount]. How can this possibly be justified in the light of ongoing failure within the water industry, which was recently highlighted by Channel 4’s ‘Dirty Business’?) [Optional paragraph, find the info in your water company’s annual report and financial statements]

It would appear that a large portion of customers’ money is being used to finance corporate profiteering rather than improvements in infrastructure. Meanwhile, our rivers and seas continue to be contaminated by sewage. This not only destroys precious wildlife, but also presents public health risks, whilst impacting local tourism and leisure activities.

I strongly believe that your failure to provide adequate water services amounts to dereliction of public duty and possibly corporate fraud. For this reason, I intend to withhold payment for wastewater services until I receive evidence to the contrary. I am prepared to pay for provision of drinking water in the interim, since this section of the bill is not currently in dispute.

Please consider this letter as an official complaint. I do not expect to receive reminders to pay, threats of debt referral or warnings of legal action until this matter has been resolved to my satisfaction.

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,