Six water companies overcharged customers between £800m and £1.5bn by “significantly or systematically” underreporting the true scale of their sewage pollution of rivers and waterways, a tribunal has heard.

In the first environmental competition class action against water companies in England, lawyers argued that the privatised firms had abused their monopoly position to mislead regulators over the amount of sewage they were discharging from their assets over the past 10 years.

As a result, the companies, Thames Water, Yorkshire Water, Anglian Water, Severn Trent, Northumbrian Water and United Utilities, were able to charge customers higher bills than they would have been allowed to if they had provided the regulators with a true picture of their sewage pollution.

Archive Link: https://archive.is/Jl6Bv

Vodafone and Three have rejected claims by the UK's competition watchdog that their proposed merger would lead to higher prices for millions of mobile users.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has "provisionally concluded" the deal would weaken competition between mobile networks.

It has particular concerns that customers who are least able to afford mobile services would be most affected.

The findings are the latest from the CMA's ongoing probe into the merger, which it launched in January.

The regulator will now consult on its findings and potential solutions to its worries over competition.

These solutions could include legally binding investment commitments, and measures to protect both retail and wholesale customers.

Vodafone's CEO for European Markets, Ahmed Essam, told the Today programme, on BBC Radio 4, that he still believed the merger would make a better network for customers, and add to the competition in the market.

"We've made a significant commitment to an £11bn investment," he said.

"We're willing to make sure that this is legally binding, and we undertake a commitment to deploy this."

He also said the firm had already traded part of its radio spectrum with a competitor.

But the CMA said it is "not convinced" that it would be good for consumers.

"The main knockback to the merging parties is that the CMA considers claims of superior network quality post integration to be "overstated"," said Kester Mann from analysis firm CCS Insight.

But he said the regulator was not shutting the door on the deal.

"Vodafone and Three should be encouraged by the tone of the CMA's report, which appears more open to the merger than I was expecting."

But Rocio Concha, director of policy and advocacy at consumer group Which?, took a different view.

"The regulator's finding has set a high bar for the merger to proceed," she said.

"It is clear from those findings that the planned merger between Vodafone and Three could have a negative impact on millions of consumers."

But she warned it would be "challenging" for the regulator to find remedies for its concerns.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/17063929

A total of nine offshore wind farm contracts have been awarded by the government after last year's auction failed to attract any bidders at all.

The contracts are part of a wider slate of green energy projects that also include tidal and solar power, and will provide enough electricity to fuel the equivalent of 11 million UK homes, the government said.

However, while the new offshore wind projects have been broadly welcomed, some experts questioned whether they would generate enough capacity to meet renewable energy targets set for 2030.

...

On Tuesday, a total of 131 contracts have been awarded to firms for projects which will generate 9.6 gigawatts (GWs) of renewable energy.

The new offshore projects include what will be Europe's largest and second-largest wind farms, Hornsea 3 and Hornsea 4, which will be built off the Yorkshire coast by Ørsted, the Danish energy giant that is majority-owned by the state.

The Labour government is aiming to produce 60GW of energy through offshore wind farms by 2030.

The offshore wind farm projects announced on Tuesday provide capacity of 4.9GW.

Pranav Menon, a research associate at Aurora Energy Research, said the government still has some way to go to meet its goal.

"It still falls short of the pace required to meet its ambitious targets," he said.

Despite the name of the Staffordshire & Worcestershire canal, it doesn't actually go through the county town of Stafford so a group of volunteers are now trying to make that happen.

A new project has been launched in 2024 that will see a missing link in the canal & waterway network between Milton Keynes and Bedford finally connected.