Thames Water has been forced to fork out £250,000 in compensation payments to homeowners and businesses impacted by botched smart meter installations since 2023, according to new data.
Figures show that poorly executed installations have been responsible for nearly 2,500 water leaks affecting customers over the past five years.
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Faulty fitting work accounted for the vast majority of incidents, with only about 30 cases attributed to defective meters.
The consequences have ranged from minor drips to serious flooding inside people’s properties, with some households left waiting weeks before problems were rectified.
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The scale of the problem raises serious questions about the pace at which the troubled utility is rolling out the devices across the capital.
More than 200,000 smart meters have been installed across London and surrounding areas in just the past year, underscoring the programme’s ambitious pace.
The devices track precise household water consumption and relay that data both to the supplier and directly to customers’ mobile phones, designed to help people monitor their usage more closely.
Water companies maintain that the technology delivers more accurate billing and helps spot leaks, but the rollout has sparked opposition from those who fear it could open the door to surge pricing or penalties for hosepipe ban violations.
Kalki Prashar, who founded Britain Against Smart Meters, told The Telegraph that he launched the campaign after a smart meter was installed outside his property without consent.
Thames Water has maintained that permission is not required and that smart meters are compulsory.
The issue has gained heightened urgency amid recent drought conditions and severe heatwaves that have raised alarm over the reliability of Britain’s water supply.
Thames Water’s deteriorating pipe network already haemorrhages roughly 570 million litres of water every single day through leakage.
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Extreme weather has compounded the crisis, with parched soil shrinking and fracturing underground pipework.
The utility has found itself contending with up to 1,000 leaks daily due to the conditions.
Against this backdrop, the revelation that the company’s own smart meter programme is contributing thousands of additional leaks to an already strained system will do little to reassure customers about the security of their water supply.
The installation work itself is contracted out to Morrison Water Services, with the meters manufactured by Honeywell.
Thames Water’s figures on leaks and flooding are drawn from error reports completed by engineers at the scene, though the company acknowledged that not every logged incident is necessarily confirmed as being linked to the meter.
Thames did not disclose how many of the reported cases were ultimately found to have other causes.
The compensation payouts and mounting leak problems come at a time when customers are already facing significantly higher charges, after Thames Water raised bills by 40 per cent last year.
The average annual bill now stands at £639.
GB News has reached out to Thames Water for comment.
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