The English water companies have told the govt that to fix the infrastructure problems they will have to increase prices to customers.
Just worth remembering that Scottish Water – which is publicly owned – has invested nearly 35 per cent more per household in infrastructure since 2002 than the privatised English firms, charging 14 per cent less and not paying out dividends.
Conclusion ….Nationalised water works better!

@MarkHoltom

Perhaps they should be forced to stop paying out to shareholders until they have fixed all the things they haven't bothered to fix so they could pay dividends instead?

It would make sense to pass a law, saying we now owned the water companies, and the shareholders should give back the money they've had from what we built.

@Walrus @MarkHoltom Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't shareholders told that the value of shares can go down as well as up

They aren't guaranteed a dividend