Guernsey Water 'rebalances' its bills for 2019

Monday 14 January 2019

During the first quarter of this year, Guernsey Water customers will see those new, 'rebalanced', charges on their quarterly bills, that we were promised, together with a leaflet explaining the changes.

Back in October last year the utility announced it would be freezing the majority of its customers’ bills in 2019 and rebalancing it’s charges to better reflect the imbalance between its water and wastewater income and expenditure. This change came into effect on 1 January 2019.

Phil Marquis, Customer Service Manager at Guernsey Water, said: “Although the majority of our customers will not see any difference in the total amount they are paying, they may notice a change in how their bill has been broken down.

“This change has been made because there has historically been an imbalance between our water and wastewater charges. This imbalance has now been addressed so that charges relate more closely to how much it costs us to provide our customers with these services. The result is that from January this year our water charges have come down and our wastewater charges have risen."

A small number of customers who have their own private water supply, will see an increase in their quarterly bills as a result of the rebalance.

“We have been working with these customers to offer fair, user pay options. One option is to have a meter fitted, free of charge, on their private water supply so that we will be able to charge customers for wastewater based on how much water they have used, rather than against the TRP of the property, as is currently the case."

Recently updated legislation now allows customers who have a private supply - a borehole - to be fitted with a water meter if they wish to do so. Their wastewater charge will then be measured using the standard industry estimated consumption of 90% as is the case for the majority of Guernsey Water’s customers.

“Our customer services team are on hand to answer any questions customers may have. We also have some very handy tools on the Guernsey Water’s website (http://www.water.gg/rebalance) that includes a calculator and comparison chart which our customers may find helpful,” Mr Marquis added.