“Although the average increase in water bills is set to be far less than the 27% last year, at 5.4%, this remains an unwelcome and unavoidable expense for households. Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end povertyBut it fails to confront the industry’s underlying problems, campaingers said. “Customers are yet again being slapped with even higher bills to prop up a crumbling system,” he said. “Nearly a third of our water bills are swallowed up servicing the water company debt pile and shelling out dividends whilst we get sick from sewage.”Since privatisation under Margaret Thatcher, water companies have extracted billions in shareholder profits while discharging sewage into rivers and seas. Mike Keil, chief executive of the Consumer Council for Water (CCW), said complaints about the affordability of water bills had almost tripled in the past year.