Average water bills in England and Wales will increase by 36% over the next five years, the water regulator Ofwat has said.

The rise is equivalent to an average extra cost of £31 per year.

Water companies had asked for an average rise of 40%.

The regulator’s draft determinations issued in July said bills would rise by an average of 21% up to 2030.

It comes as almost 60,000 homes across Hampshire are without water because of a “technical issue” at a Southern Water supply works.

Southern Water customers will experience the biggest rise in the cost of bills of all eleven water and wastewater companies – a 53% hike. The company had sought an increase of 83%.

Customers of Wessex Water will have the lowest, 21%, bill rise.

The 16 million customers of the UK’s biggest water company Thames Water will see bills become 35% more expensive, below the 53% increase requested by the utility.

By 2030 a typical annual bill will cost £588.

Paying the most every year in five years’ time will be Dwr Cymru customers, with an average annual bill of £645.

Why are bills going up?

Bills are going up as the utilities face a range of problems – including higher borrowing costs on large levels of debt, creaking infrastructure and record sewage outflows into waterways.

Ofwat has now agreed to investment plans by the water companies. Funding this investment is another reason bills have been allowed to rise.

The regulator has approved £104bn in funding, above the £85bn agreed with firms in Ofwat’s draft determination but just below the £108bn the companies wanted.

Higher bills will not solve the financial woes at some of the utilities, including Thames Water, which this week won court approval to pursue the next phase in securing a £3bn emergency loan.

If approval had not been granted Thames Water told the High Court it would run out of cash by 24 March and would likely be pushed into a government-backed special administration regime.

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Ofwat chief executive David Black said: “We recognise it is a difficult time for many, and we are acutely aware of the impact that bill increases will have for some customers. That is why it is vital that companies are stepping up their support for customers who struggle to pay.

“We have robustly examined all funding requests to make sure they provide value for money and deliver real improvements while ensuring the sector can attract the levels of investment it needs to meet environmental requirements.”

Almost 60,000 homes across Hampshire are without water because of a “technical issue” at a Southern Water supply works, the company has said.

Homes in Southampton, Romsey, Eastleigh, Totton, and parts of the New Forest have been affected by problems at the Testwood water supply works preventing water from leaving the site.

Southern Water apologised and said it was working hard to restore supplies, but warned the issue might continue until the weekend.

Long queues have been reported at bottle stations which have been set up at the Places Leisure Centre in Eastleigh, Sainsbury’s superstore in Southampton and Asda superstore in Totton.

Five charts that explain why water bills are about to go up

Southern Water said they are continuing to deliver water supplies to customers registered on their priority list and estimate that around 58,000 homes have been affected.

It said they have supplied dedicated tankers to Southampton General Hospital and Princess Anne Hospital. Several schools in the area say they are unlikely to open today.

In a statement on its website, Southampton General said: “We are working with Southern Water on contingency arrangements to ensure our hospitals continue to maintain water supplies.”

It added: “We ask patients to continue to attend appointments as planned but to allow extra time for their journey and in accessing parking facilities, due to the access requirements being put in place to enable delivery of those supplies.”

Southern Water has said it hopes supply will be restored throughout Thursday, but said the issue may not be fully resolved until the weekend.

“We are working towards all customers being back in supply by the weekend,” it said.

The outage comes as consumers in England and Wales prepare to hear today how much water bills will rise.

Southern Water wants the regulator Ofwat to allow it to increase bills by a whopping 84%, while struggling Thames Water has asked for a 53% rise.

Ofwat is expected to announce that charges will increase by more than 20% by 2030, which means an average rise of £20 a year per household and the average bill rising from £448 a year to £542.

Ofwat’s draft decisions released in July allowed water companies to increase bills by an average of 21%, before inflation is added, over the next five years to help fund £88 billion of investment in improving services and the environment.

The proposed bill rises would begin to take effect from April next year.

Britain’s youngest knife murderers could be given a longer sentence as judges today consider if eight-and-a-half years was too lenient.

The boys were both 12 when they were found guilty over a brutal machete attack that killed Shawn Seesahai, 19, in Wolverhampton in November 2023.

Mr Seesahai was slashed in his legs and skull, while the fatal blow to his back was 23cm deep and almost came out his chest.

The boys are believed to be the youngest convicted of murder in the UK since James Bulger’s 11-year-old killers in 1993.

They accused each other of wielding the machete but were found to be jointly responsible for the attack, which trial judge Mrs Justice Tipples called “horrific and shocking”.

However, she said she also had to consider the boys’ “emotional maturity” and other factors based on their age and upbringing when she sentenced them to a minimum of eight and a half years in September.

The boys are now 13 but can’t legally be named due to laws protecting young offenders, with the judge saying their welfare outweighed the wider interest in open justice.

The bid to increase their sentence will be heard this morning at the Court of Appeal under the Unduly Lenient Sentence (ULS) scheme.

Relatives, victims and members of the public can use the scheme to ask the Attorney General’s Office to review sentences that seem unreasonably low.

If the three senior judges agree it was too lenient based on the evidence at the time, they can quash it and replace it with a new one. They could also leave it unchanged.

Mr Seesahai, originally from Anguilla in the Caribbean, had been staying in Birmingham while recovering from cataract surgery and hoped to become an engineer in the UK.

The attack happened when he and a friend encountered a group of children in a Wolverhampton park.

Prosecutors said despite doing nothing to provoke them, he was attacked after one of the boys deliberately “shoulder brushed” him and pulled out a machete.

Mr Seesahai’s friend escaped but the 19-year-old ended up on the floor where he was punched, kicked and repeatedly knifed.

The boys have been held in secure accommodation since the attack.