CUSTOMERS should not bear the cost of water companies’ failures, campaigners warned today.

Water firms have funded a report suggesting that capping customer bills would harm efforts to stop sewage leaks. 

The report by Water UK, the trade association which represents all of Britain’s water firms, took aim at regulator Ofwat’s proposal to cap water bill rises to £19 a year on average. 

It warned that there was a “material risk” that it could drive away investors needed to bring water infrastructure up to scratch.

The proposed cap followed companies’ plans to boost spending by £29 billion, ultimately recovered through customers’ bills, partly to fix crumbling infrastructure that saw sewage spills more than double last year.

Ofwat managed to slash the spending plan by £16bn. 

Despite the need for urgent work to keep Britain’s waterways clean, firms have continued to hand out billions in dividends to bosses and shareholders. 

We Own It lead campaigner Matthew Topham said: “Nearly every penny of investment has been met through our bills, while debts have been taken on to fund over £78bn in dividends.

“Water companies have funded a report in an attempt to scare Ofwat, the regulator, into waving through even larger bill hikes, despite bills already rising at twice the rate of inflation since privatisation.

“Bill rises will only serve to bail out the existing shareholders from the ecological and financial crisis they have created for themselves. We must not be asked to pay for their mess.”

Surfers Against Sewage director of campaigns and communities Dani Jordan said: “The price review process is the workings of a failed system.

“We need to move away from the false narrative of bills v the environment, and we need to move to a fundamental long-term shift to a sustainable and fair system that works in favour of customers, public health and prioritises our rivers, lakes and seas.”