Just two months ago, it was announced that water customers across Kent could expect to see their bills reduced.

Due to well-publicised failures to deliver on key targets, water regulator Ofwat directed customers to be refunded some £114 million.

Yet now reports suggest our monthly bills are, in fact, set to rise. So just what can we expect?

Well, firstly, the average water bill is around £448 a year – a figure which rose by around 7.5% in April. Those refunds would kick in for the next financial year – in other words between April 2024-2025.

If you’re a Thames Water customer, then you were told in September that you would be sharing in a £101 million pay-back by the company to its customers.

However, earlier this week, Ofwat re-evaluated that fine and reduced it to £73.8m. Still sounds like an awful lot, right?

Well, in fact, it works out to be roughly £4.92 for each customer.

Southern Water was told to pay back £43m – but it has deferred £21m of that to the 2025/26 tax year. The result for customers? We’re talking single-digit bill reductions.

Still, a saving is a saving. Until, of course, it isn’t.

Because according to reports earlier this summer, water companies want to see bills rise by a budget-busting 40% over the remainder of the decade. Which will quite comfortably swallow that £5 saving you were looking forward to.

So why such a rise? In short, because the water companies need to make significant investments in infrastructure in a bid to eradicate some of the high-profile problems it has seen over recent years and which has made the industry one so scorned by so many.

The Ofwat punishments announced in September came after it published its annual Water Company Performance Report. This covers a range of key topics over which the firms are measured. They include pollution incidents, leaks and customer service.

The firms are rated ‘leading’, ‘average’ or ‘lagging’. Thames Water, Southern Water and South East Water were all in the latter category.

To tackle these issues, the water companies know they have to throw significant money at fixing them. Who will be paying for those improvements? Well, I’m sure you can guess.

According to some reports, Thames Water (it of the £4.92 rebate) is looking to up its bills between 2025 and 2030 by 20%.

All companies submitted their price hike plans to Ofwat for approval last month. They now await confirmation from the regulator.

Ofwat’s CEO David Black said: “The water industry needs to deliver a step change in investment and performance to clean up our rivers and seas, while also helping to ensure that we can meet the challenge of climate change.

“Company business plans are an important first step in the price review process. Ofwat’s role is to forensically scrutinise their proposals, to ensure any increase in bills is justified, efficient and delivers significant improvements in river and bathing water quality. We will assess how companies are helping customers to afford any bill increase.

“As we work through the business plans we will continue to monitor companies’ performance, hold them to account for delivering improvements and push them to build meaningful plans to change.”

This week, Southern Water revealed it plans to invest a record £1.5 billion to tackle the problem of storm overflows between 2025-35. Storm overflows are essentially safety valves to ease pressure on the water system during heavy prolonged rain and ease the threat of flooding. The problem is that it means sewage can be released into rivers of our seas.

CEO of Southern Water, Lawrence Gosden, said: “I’ve heard our customers’ concerns, and we take our impact on the environment seriously. We have a long-term strategy to 2050 that will restore and protect our regions’ rivers and coastal habitats and a large part of that will be to get to the root cause of storm overflows.

“We cannot simply switch storm overflows off. But by implementing this Clean Rivers and Seas Plan and tackling the root cause, slowing the flow of rainwater going into the combined sewer, whilst increasing capacity of our network, we can reduce their use.”

“Collaboration is key, and we cannot achieve the results needed alone. That is why we are calling on our customers and local authorities to work with us and adopt solutions like water butts or sustainable drainage systems, to channel rainwater safely and slowly back into the environment. Together, we can go faster and further, protecting our communities and our environment.”