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CCW has warned that a decision to temporarily increase the price caps in the retail water market by 0.49 per cent will put a disproportionate burden on business customers at an already difficult time.

The regulator Ofwat confirmed the move opens in new window today (Monday) as part of efforts to deal with rising bad debt costs in England’s retail water market caused by the impact of Covid-19.

The changes do not affect household customers.

Christina Blackwell, Senior Policy Manager at CCW, said:

This increase in the price caps will put a disproportionate burden on business customers at a time when many are still recovering from the impact of Covid-19. We believe the debt costs should be shared equally across customers, retailers, and wholesalers to avoid unfairly penalising business customers – many of whom are still not enjoying a positive experience of the retail water market. Systemic retailer failure would be undesirable, but protecting retailers appears to have taken precedence over alleviating the pressure on business customers, most of whom will not enjoy the same protection in their own sectors that water retailers are being given.