Helps you with your debts too (United Utilities)

Member Name: haydn96

Product:	United Utilities
Date:	22/10/08 (143 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very approachable and helps with all round budgeting and debt

Disadvantages: Its a bill

Living in the South of Manchester our local water company is United Utilities.

The Company

United Utilities was formed in 1995 from the merger of North West Water and Norweb. Its main activities are managing and operating the regulated electricity distribution, water and wastewater networks in north west England, a region with a population in excess of 7 million

In 2000 United Utilities sold of its electricity and gas and as a result now only controls water issues in the area.

As well as operating its water and wastewater networks in the North West of England, the group also uses its skills to manage other assets.

United Utilities is a member of the FTSE 100 group of leading UK listed companies and employs over 8,000 people many in the North West. United Utilities Group PLC is a PLC (obviously, not difficult to determine from the PLC part of its name!!) It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is registered in England with company number 6559020.

The registered office is: Haweswater House, Lingley Mere Business Park, Lingley Green Avenue, Great Sankey, Warrington, WA5 3LP.

Unitied Utilities is the umbrella over its three divisions

Utility Solutions
This division operates water and wastewater, electricity and gas networks under contract, whether on behalf of United Utilities or for external clients ( contracted out )Our regulated division manages water and wastewater networks serving 3.2 million customer premises in north west England.
The strategy is to focus on our core skills of managing water, wastewater, electricity and gas networks to create a world class operator of utility infrastructure.
United Utilities manages water and wastewater networks in Wales and Southern England and wastewater treatment facilities in Scotland as well as the electricity distribution network in the North West and the gas distribution network for the North of England.
It provides specialist waste treatment, multi-utility metering and connections services to industry


Asset Management & Regulation
This division manages and delivers the water and electricity regulatory price review strategy It also is responsible for maintaining relationships with key opinion-formers - ministers, regulators and civil servants.

Business Development
This division developes and delivers a business growth strategy for United Utilities. It also delivers international business financial targets for infra structure commitments.

United Utilities owns and operates the water network in North West England. It servew a population of over seven million people and 2.9 million households and business premises. The Company supplies 2,000 million litres of drinking water every day via a network of around 40,000 kilometres of water mains, 1,200 kilometres of aqueduct and 98 water treatment works.


Every day hundreds of samples of water are analysed to ensure that the quality of drinking water meets stringent national and European standards. Over half a million measurements of water quality are made at water treatment works, service reservoirs, supply points and at consumers' taps every year, with 99.94% of water tests at customers' taps meeting the requisite standards for drinking water quality.

The treatment processes ensure that water that reaches our tap is safe to drink. Chlorine is added to the water at the final stage of treatment in order to ensure that any harmful microorganisms that may be present are killed. Some chlorine is left in the water to ensure that its wholesomeness is maintained as it makes its way to our taps. United Utilities aims to minimise the amount of chlorine in drinking water, whilst maintaining its wholesomeness.

Between 2000 and 2005 the Company invested £700 million in improving drinking water quality. During the next five year period, there is a planned investment of around £1.2 billion on improving drinking water by carrying out improvements to the quality of water supplied by 50 water treatment works
renovation of 2,471 km of water mains and cleaning of some of the large diameter trunk main systems carrying out further work to improve lead compliance and to meet the tighter standards

Now to maintain such a service there has to be a cost. United Utilities charges its customers on average 96p per day for its services with this expected to rise to £1.07 per day in 2010. This is for supplies of fresh drinking water and sewerage and drainage. Not bad value considering.

However if you are finiding it hard to pay the bill I have found from personal experience that United Utilities are a very approachable company. They seem to take the Data Protection Act seriously and written notification is sought before they will speak to you on behalf of someone else, this in my opinion is a good thing and shows that they take abiding by the law seriously unlike some other large companies. The staff are friendly and approachable and go out of their way to help. The can be found either using a number of freephone 0800 phone numbers or standard landline numbers rather than having to use an expensive 0870 telephone number. Although they are fairly quick off the mark if you do not pay your bill to wirte to you, if you ring them and explain your circumstances they have very controlled measures set up to help you.

If you are in receipt of certain benefits they make use of the direct payments scheme whereby the weekly or fortnightly cost of your water is taken directly from your benefits before you get them plus a small amount, no more than £2.85 for the arrears.

They also run a scheme whereby if you show a willingness to pay your bill on a regular basis they will help by matching any payments you make pound for pound so in effect you would only have to pay half your bill and they would pay the other half. The bill can be paid weekly using a card at any Paypoint outlet or by direct debit. Using direct debit saves you £5 off your annual bill. Payments are taken for 10 months of the year from April to February but again if you are having difficulty payments can easily be spread over 12 months effectively making the monthly payments smaller.

The also run a charitable scheme where they can help you budget and give you a grant towards your other household bills if you are in debt. This takes a while to come through and you are not guaranteed help. It not only gives help towards your water bill but also your gas and electricity as well as other stringently controlled debts. If you are in debt with utility bills I advice a trip to the CAB who can advice on other help available from other sources as well as United Utlilties.

Summary: A responsible company