Anglian Water Omdömen 

FAO: Chief Executive
Anglian Water Services Ltd
Lancaster House
Lancaster Way, Ermine Business Park
Huntingdon,
Cambridgeshire
PE29 6XU

Dear Mr Thurston

Formal Complaint – Alleged Breach of Confidentiality and Request for Investigation

I am writing to ask for your personal intervention in what I believe is a very serious breach of confidentiality by Anglian Water.
I reported an environmental incident involving an oil leak from a neighbour’s vehicle that was flowing into a drain. Before making the report, I was assured that my identity would remain confidential.

Following my report, my neighbour came to my home and complained that I had reported them to Anglian Water. This confrontation has caused me considerable distress and has left me concerned for my privacy and personal safety for my wife and myself. I have no reason to believe my identity became known other than through Anglian Water.
If my personal information has been disclosed without lawful justification, I believe this may amount to a breach of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, as well as a breach of the assurance of confidentiality given to me when I made the report.

I respectfully request that you arrange for an immediate and independent investigation into this matter and provide me with a written response addressing the following:

Whether my name or any information capable of identifying me was disclosed to my neighbour.


How and why any such disclosure occurred?

Who authorised or made the disclosure?

The legal basis relied upon for disclosing my personal information, if any?

What action Anglian Water intends to take to prevent similar incidents in the future?

I also request that Anglian Water considers appropriate compensation for the distress, anxiety and confrontation that I have experienced as a direct consequence of this apparent breach of confidentiality.
Please treat this as a formal complaint. If I do not receive a satisfactory response within 28 days, I intend to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner’s Office for investigation and will consider seeking independent legal advice regarding my right to compensation.
I have always believed that members of the public should be able to report environmental concerns without fear that their identities will be disclosed. I hope you will recognise the seriousness of this matter and ensure it is investigated thoroughly.

I have contacted your colleagues, but I wanted for you to be aware of this possible breach. (See attached).

I look forward to your prompt response.

Yours

I used extra water to establish a new lawn before the July 2026 hosepipe ban. That water soaked into the ground and did not enter the sewer, yet Anglian Water charged me sewerage costs on it.
I provided photographs and calculated around 14,800 litres of lawn watering. Anglian Water awful customer services eventually accepted only 4,110 litres, offering just £11 reduction, and then hid behind its policy because I could not retrospectively install a sub-meter. Disgraceful.
Add to this higher summer water rates, serious concerns about leakage and infrastructure, and reported executive remuneration of around £1.86 million, and it is difficult to see where the customer comes first.
Water is an essential service, not a luxury. It is time this industry was treated as such.

Worst company I have ever dealt with. Refusal to keep promises made regarding water allowance and refusal to communicate with upper management.

Horrendous. 0 star would be an option!

there is no 0 star, Anglian water in court for polluting our rivers yet again whilst raising bills 20% this year to cover historical failures, charging us to cover the bill for the years of infrastructure neglect whilst focusing on profit over performance. Broken Britain, privatised public services abusing the system yet again.

Dreadful customer service unlawful profiteering for a service that we all need and can not do without , just dreadful

I am extremely disappointed with the way Anglian Water has handled my account.

In January 2025, I had an outstanding balance that I could not afford to pay in full. I contacted Anglian Water, explained my financial circumstances, and they agreed an instalment plan of £47.60 per month.

I maintained that payment arrangement and, importantly, Anglian Water has now confirmed in writing that I did not miss any of the agreed payments.

Despite this, Anglian Water subsequently reported information about my account to the credit reference agencies in July 2026. My credit file now shows me as being in arrears with Anglian Water and my credit rating has dropped by just under 100 points

This is extremely concerning because I was never told that the instalment plan had an end date, that I needed to set up a new arrangement, or that the remaining balance would suddenly need to be dealt with separately. Nobody contacted me to tell me that I was at risk of credit reporting. Had somebody contacted me and explained this, I would have dealt with the balance.

I was actually told in writing in January 2025:

"If I've set up a special instalment plan for you, if you miss any payments on the arrangement, there may be a chance this will affect your credit rating."

I did not miss any payments.

Anglian Water's position now appears to be that the original balance was technically due in January 2025, despite the fact that they subsequently agreed an instalment arrangement with me and I complied with it.

I have repeatedly asked them to provide the documentation showing where I was told that the instalment plan had an end date or that I needed to contact them again. I have not been provided with this.

I have also raised concerns about the Guaranteed Standards Scheme and whether the correct process was followed before my information was reported to the credit reference agencies. I am still pursuing this complaint.

This has been particularly distressing because I am a vulnerable customer and Anglian Water was aware that I was experiencing financial difficulties when the payment arrangement was established. The impact on my credit file is also particularly serious because I am approaching a remortgage.

What I find most frustrating is that Anglian Water's own response confirms that I maintained the payment arrangement and did not miss payments, yet they still consider it appropriate for my account to appear as being in arrears on my credit file.

I am not disputing that I had an outstanding balance. I am disputing the way this has been handled and the lack of clear communication before information was reported to my credit file.

I would strongly urge anyone experiencing financial difficulties with Anglian Water to keep copies of every piece of correspondence and payment record, and to make sure you fully understand exactly what any payment arrangement means for your credit file.

I am still seeking a resolution and have escalated my complaint.

Super polite and helpful. Called about one matter and they ended up helping me out with a lot more

On hold for 1 hour no staff all hybrid workers
Phoned to query a bill so needs human interaction repeat message use Web site.

Had Anglia Water out to review problems with our external water meter. Visited by Rachel who was exceedingly professional and courteous. She explained what had happened and the steps she has taken to eradicate the problem.
Excellent customer service, well done Rachel !

Terrible customer service. Broken promises to call back on many occasions now.

We have such low water pressure that we can't even flush the toilets, its now becoming a health and safety issue in the house. I'm being given so many different reports of what is and isn't happening and its taking hours to get called back. I'm logging calls just so someone takes some notice and actually gets engineering out to trace what is obviously another leak

I just want to say a big thank you to the lovely guys, who fixed and cleaned the sewage pipes.

Very understanding in regards to No shoe zone on the carpets. 😄

stop discharging sewage into the blackwater constantly you obviously havent seen the damage your doing you should be in court its the middle of summer we have no rain yet still and it stinks all along this coastline now vile company vile people

Anglian Water changed my old water meter for a smart meter and almost immediately informed me that I had a water leak. It was proved to be between my house (set back off the footway by 14 meters) and the meter. I suspected from the onset that the leak must be something to do with fitting the new meter. The only check AWA did to prove responsibility was to add a chemical to the latent body of water in the meter footway box and wait to see if it turned pink. If it had, it would have indicated mains water but it didn't and subsequently, the responsibility to find and fix the leak was placed on me. After obtaining three quotes of up to £1330 to find and clear the leak, I chose one at £650 and the contractor found a small leak on the joint between meter pipe and my water feed across the lawn which indicated AWA responsibility. To cut a long story short, AWA fixed the leak by fitting a new meter plus new pipe connection and refunded my £650 outlay. My gripe is that AWA should have tested the pipe joint and not just rely on testing the sump water before allocating responsibility on me. I was put through 6 to 7 months of stress before the refund and think many more may be going through or gone through the same experience. Many householders would struggle to finance finding a leak and could be taken to court as a result. I self insure but many may not be able to do that. My advice to anyone in a similar position is to get AWA to check the pipe joint first, especially if a new meter has been fitted. I have put this to AWA in an email and await their reply. The people that I dealt with at AWA were fine.

MBR Acres is a commercial facility in Cambridgeshire, UK, that breeds beagle puppies specifically for scientific and medical research. Around 2,000 puppies are bred at the site annually.
Testing and Research: In labs, they are typically used for regulatory safety and toxicology testing, which can involve ingesting or inhaling chemicals, pesticides, or medicines before being humanely killed.
Harvesting: Licenses also permit terminal blood sampling and the harvesting of biological products or organs from the dogs

Expensive and useless.

Whilst we have sought to conserve our water use with shorter showers, storing water when we run the hot tap and a self-imposed hosepipe ban before the official one was enforced, the bills continue to rise - in relative terms certainly more than other outgoing costs. This has also coincided with obscene remunerations for the senior figures in the company at a time when there has been ongoing issues with sewage discharges (in spite of the £62.8m fine last autumn). And once again this week we had low water pressure and supply severely disrupted. For any other service there would be the option of switching supplier but when it's a privatised monopoly no such option exists. Such a vital resource should never have been denationalised in the first instance.

Shane there is a no star option or even a minus , these scumbags are trying to charge me more for my water than e on are for electric , had a similar dispute with them a few years ago too when the billing was still under investigation they went ahead and put a default on the account with no notifications to my self now they are refusing to remove from credit file , this is not going to end well for them , they know you can’t just switch suppliers , got to put up with there disgusting service and they know it.

While I have no negative feedback about the staff I feel I have to express my shock and horror over the recent hosepipe ban not at the ban, thats understandable but to exclude new lawns from the ban has Anglian water been hit by heat stroke or just lost their marbles completely, so peoples water pressure is reduced yet new builds with new lawns have free reign, it speaks for itself , do they honestly think people will fully adhere to the ban when they see neighbours out watering their lawn. Disgraceful

Direct debit was not taken despite sufficient funds in my account, no explanation given, even when requested, just an email the next day saying that my direct debit is now cancelled!! Complaint sent.