Churches facing water bill threat

MPs are demanding that the water company which serves Rochdale reviews its decision to charge churches up to £1,000 a year in bills — fearing local places of worship could be forced to close.

United Utilities has introduced the new charge to cover the cost of surface water and highways drainage. Churches were previously exempt from water rates but must now pay this charge, calculated on the surface area of their site.
 
Father Paul Daly, of St Joseph's RC Church in Heywood, said the church's water bill has been estimated by United Utilities as increasing by £1043 per year.

"United Utilities are treating places of worship as if they were profit making businesses who could easily pass this increase onto their customers," he told Rochdale Online. "This shows a sad lack of understanding of the role of the Church, and other faiths, in providing a pastoral presence in every local community in the land 24/7 365 days a year. 

"This increase will have a negative impact on our plans for future development but, given our numbers at St. Joseph’s, we should be able to absorb its impact, unjust though the increase is. What is more worrying, however, is the effect that this increase will have on smaller congregations. There will be some smaller churches up and down the region that may well have to close because of this. The wider community will be the poorer for that. 

"You would have thought that, even in these days, a business like United Utilities would have been able to sit down with the churches and come up with a workable solution. ”

The charge applies only to non-household premises, such as businesses and public buildings, which have a water meter. Water industry regulator Ofwat and the customer watchdog, the Consumer Council for Water, back the move, considering it to be fairer than the previous scheme.

However, a House of Commons petition demands United Utilities rethink the change, which MPs believe will have a negative impact on all places of worship.

In the past, non-household customers paid for the surface water drainage element of their bill through a fixed charge, usually based on a property’s rateable value. Under the new charge, which is being phased in by 2011, it is based on the drained area occupied by a property and its site.

United Utilities said it was making no financial gain from the changes.

Customer service director Brian Hurd said: “The aim is not to increase our revenue but to provide a system which better reflects the costs involved. This means that individual customers have seen either increases or decreases in these charges.

“Rateable value was previously the most common method used to assess rainwater drainage charges.

“Although this did take account of property size, it was also influenced by a property’s location and this could lead to many inconsistencies in charges for surface water drainage.”

A spokesman for the Consumer Council for Water added: “The change has been approved by Ofwat to try to ensure a fairer system of charging so that non-household customers are paying for the load they place on the public sewers and drains.”