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Northern Ireland Businesses Face Water Charge Hikes

Some 80,000 businesses in Northern Ireland are set to be hit with increases to their water charges, with Northern Ireland Water (NIW) having been granted permission from the Utility Regulator to push up sewerage and water charges by up to 4.6 per cent.

 

From April, its business customers will see increases of an average of 3.35 per cent, with the plans already having been criticised by the Federation for Small Businesses, the BBC reports.

 

The organisation’s Roger Pollen said it was an unwelcome move, calling on the government to see what can now be done to help remove the burden from companies, perhaps by slashing some of the regulations to compensate for this increase in costs that is now being put on them.

 

NIW itself raises approximately £78 million each year from charging non-household customers, including farmers. But most of its revenue comes from a subsidy from Stormont, which is paid instead of charging domestic customers.

 

The supplier’s finance director Ronan Larkin was quoted by the news source as saying: “Whilst the cost of providing services has risen, we have been able to absorb some of these and minimise the increase in tariffs. Businesses will be paying less in real terms that they did at the start of 2015.”

 

Those of you concerned about how your business will absorb this increase might be spurred on to get in touch with water consultants like H2O Building Services to see how money can be saved on water in the future.

 

We offer a water bill validation service which will help you work out just what your water supplier is charging you for. The bill system can be difficult to understand and you may well have no idea if you’re actually being billed correctly based on your actual water usage. Chances are that you could be being overcharged.

 

We have years of experience in dealing with water supply companies and our specialist consultants are able to quickly spot any errors and discrepancies – possibly saving you thousands of pounds in reduced costs and refunds as a result.

 

The team will also continue to monitor and manage your bills over time, examining them before you receive them and checking and validating them before approving payments and then passing them on to you.

 

This means you’ll be able to enjoy greater peace of mind that what you are paying is right each time and any issues will be dealt with before payment authorisation, so you won’t have to bother trying to claw back cash if errors are found after the fact.

 

In fact, we recently succeeded in securing McDonald’s 250,000 in refunds after being commissioned to do a water audit for the company’s restaurants. We carried out a full inspection and helped to reduce the client’s water bills after analysing some sites and investigating surface water charges levied by all water companies where the brand had restaurants. Get in touch with us today to find out more.

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