Millions of households face jump in water bills after regulator backs more price rises

Competition watchdog agrees requests from Anglian, Northumbrian, Southern, Wessex and South East to raise household bills

Millions of households in England will see their water bills increase by even more than expected, after the competition regulator gave the green light for five water suppliers to raise charges to customers – but rejected most of the companies’ demands.

An independent group of experts appointed by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) provisionally decided to allow the companies to charge customers an extra £556m over the next five years, it said on Thursday. That was only 21% of the £2.7bn that the firms requested.