Thread by @EfanIfor

UPDATED WATER💧THREAD #indywales @indytanc @YesCymru

*Caveat: This is a simplistic overview (not authoritative) designed only to inform & to highlight the exploitative political system that allows abstraction of Welsh water, our national resource, to be siphoned & utilised 1/12

to create private profit for large corporations & their individual private shareholders via English based privatised water companies.

Thread begins below

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2/12

💦Water abstracted from Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

18.25 Billion litres are abstracted from river Dee in Wales per year

91.98 Billion litres are abstracted per year from lake Vyrnwy

133 Billion litres per year are abstracted from Elan Valley reservoirs.

In total 243.23 Billion litres

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At time of writing wholesale charges 2019/20 are £1.792pcm or £0.00179pltr (less than 2/10 of a PENNY)

@ £0.00179pltr thats equates to £435,381,700

United Utilities sell their water @ £3.19pcm for example. At this rate Welsh water is worth £776,127,000 to our GDP.

4/12

United Utilities last accounts showed revenue of £1.82bn with an operating profit of almost 37%

That is £684.8m (as shown below)

With share capital of c681m that works out at a total dividend to shareholders in excess of £281.1 million.

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Source: unitedutilities.annualreport2019.com

Severn Trent last annual report summary screenshoted below.

Note the dividend paid to shareholders.

50,431 total shareholders paid.

The company has 240,943,929 total share capital.

That equates to a dividend payment in excess of £224.3million.

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What this currently means is between United Utilities & Severn Trent a total financial windfall, via their collective dividend payout, worked out as...

£524.33 Million

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How does this currently affect the economics of Wales?

The GDP created by Welsh water is not added to Welsh GDP it is added to English GDP. Which in turn directly ties into the ‘Welsh deficit’ argument. It removes GDP from Wales as well as a source of funding.

8/12

If we wanted to speculate potential earnings we should also include the question raised in Westminster regarding the possibility of Welsh water supplying London & the wider SE England. If we considered population as a comparitive approximate measuring point, a fundamentally 9/12

flawed approach, we could create a extremely speculative water requirement of 300 Billion litres per year to SE England. At £3.19pcm this would create a revenue of £957 Million.

We could, of course increase prices to create better revenues but it is important to note that 10/12

UK wholesale & consumer prices of water are amongst the highest in Europe by quite a margin.

Ergo any price hike would require England to subsidise their water supply to their population. Which in itself is unlikely.

However to put these revenues in perspective, Welsh 11/12

NHS spending 2020-21 is budgeted at £8.74 Billion. Thus potential water revenues, although significant, are still dwarfed by spending priorities.

These revenues could however cover the cost of water for all Welsh households & create a national economic fund.

The End << 12/12