THAMES WATER is “reshuffling chairs on the deck of the Titanic,” campaigners said today after the company revealed plans to appoint four new directors to avoid nationalisation.

Former Yorkshire Water chief executive Liz Barber, ex-Department for Transport permanent secretary Dame Bernadette Kelly and former BT Openreach boss Clive Selley are among those proposed by the London & Valley Water consortium if the government approves a rescue deal.

The consortium previously offered the government a “golden share” as part of the revised deal.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham signalled he wants a 10-year plan to renationalise the water industry, but the government has said it would prefer a “market solution” for Thames Water.

The rescue plan is considered the final option to avoid Thames Water entering special administration, after a previous KKR-led deal collapsed last year.

Creditors, who hold around £17 billion of the company’s £20bn debt, are hoping to secure approval this autumn, having warned they could run out of cash by October.

Cat Hobbs, director at public ownership campaign group We Own It, called the plans “absolutely absurd,” adding: “A cosy stitch-up that has nothing to do with the interests of the 16 million people who depend on Thames Water.

“This amounts to nothing more than a reshuffling of chairs on the deck of the Titanic.”

Highlighting that the creditors are US hedge funds whose interests are “fundamentally at odds with those of the public,” she said: “There is no ‘market solution’ because there is no market.

“[The public] don’t want new board members or ‘local representation.’ We want permanent public ownership, which is the norm in nine out of ten countries worldwide.”

She called on the PM to “let Thames Water go bust, slash the debt and take it back permanently.”