Welsh Water written complaints more than double in a year

The number of customers complaining about Welsh Water has more than doubled in a year, a watchdog has said.

The 115% rise in written complaints was the biggest among any water company in England and Wales, the Consumer Council for Water (CCWater) found.

Among the issues were more rigorous debt collection, a new billing system and poor communication with some customers from 2015 to 2016.

Welsh Water said it had taken steps to address the issues causing complaints.

However Dee Valley Water, which serves about 260,000 customers in north east Wales and north west England, saw complaints fall by nearly 13%, keeping its record of cutting complaints for a fifth successive year.

Severn Trent, which operates in parts of mid Wales, was one of the best performing companies, with complaints down by 28% on last year.

'Disappointed'

Tom Taylor, chairman of CCWater's Wales committee, said: "We are disappointed the good progress Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water had made in recent years has been undermined by such a sharp rise in complaints.

"The company has identified the steps it needs to take to put things right with its internal systems and communication with customers, but we will be watching closely to make sure these changes deliver significant improvements."

Overall, written complaints across England and Wales fell marginally by 0.5% in 2015-16.

CCWater said it had asked Welsh Water to provide a progress report by the end of October.

Welsh Water said it was disappointed to see an increase in the written complaints, citing the debt collection and new billing system as factors.

Chief executive Chris Jones said: "It was a bad year in terms of complaints in Wales last year - in terms of written complaints.

"The main reasons for that was we introduced a new billing system which meant that there were errors on some people's bills.

"We have had to apologise for that, put those errors right and we have been working hard to correct those problems and make sure that doesn't happen going forward."