Following news that water bills from Dŵr Cymru/Welsh Water will be allowed to increase its bills from an average of £455 this year to £645 in five years time, making them the highest in the UK, isn’t it time for the UK and Welsh Governments to directly intervene?

Welsh Water was hit with a hefty fine back in October, ordered to pay a £24.1m underperformance penalty by industry regulator Ofwat - but it seems that we’re all having to subsidise that sum!

Welsh Liberal Democrats have now also called for Ofwat to be replaced with a new regulator with increased powers, with their MP David Chadwick having a dig at the previous Conservative Government on matters concerning the water firm, stating: “Make no mistake this announcement is part of the legacy of the previous Government.

“For years they allowed water companies to get away with stripping out the profit for gigantic executive bonuses while failing to invest in vital infrastructure and pumping raw sewage into our rivers.

“It is an absolute disgrace that Welsh customers now face the highest water bills in the UK while also having some of the lowest incomes.

“People are already struggling with the cost of living immensely.”

The party’s leader Jane Dodds has long campaigned for the clean-up of our rivers and coastlines and for harsher punishments for those guilty of ‘sewage dumping’ stating: “For far too long now, the people of Wales have been saddled with rising water bills while our rivers and coastlines are being polluted with sewage.

“It’s clear that our Welsh water companies have routinely fallen short of the standards expected of them.”

Indeed, calls to finally replace Ofwat with a new, effective regulator to hold water companies accountable, and introduce a single social tariff for water bills to help eliminate water poverty - seem like a good start.

With Tenby escaping a major pollution spill for its beaches at the start of this summer, such events show that the enforcement agency Natural Resources Wales also appear to be totally ineffective in bringing the water company to account.

And just look around the streets of our towns - when do Welsh Water do anything well, with major leaks getting reported, yet it can be weeks and weeks before anything is dealt with - yet our Governments seem more than happy for housholders to keep on stumping up the bill for this water company’s longstanding misgivings.