£418,000 bonus paid to Thames Water boss revealed days after workmen flooded Central Line tunnel

 

Thames Water has angered commuters stranded by the Central line flood by revealing that it paid its boss a £418,000 cash bonus last year.

Details of the payment came days after the company’s workmen deluged the Tube line at Stratford, bringing chaos to thousands, while attempting to fix a leaking pipe.

Transport unions said they were “shocked and appalled” by the bonus to chief executive Martin Baggs, which covered the 12 months to March. Manuel Cortes, general secretary of the TSSA union, said: “These people are already highly paid and to award a bonus on top is to add insult to injury to the hundreds of thousands of commuters who were disrupted.”

Thames Water engineers triggered one of the Tube’s biggest safety scares when two million gallons of water cascaded into a tunnel, leaving passengers stranded for up to two hours. Media director Jacqui Ripley, who had to pay £20 for a taxi home, said: “Passengers aren’t able to claim a refund from TfL because it was Thames Water’s fault. It would be nice if some of the bonus went towards paying for my cab.”

Mr Baggs earned a total of £896,000 last year. This was down from £956,000 in the previous year.

The bonus covered the last financial year when Thames Water’s underlying profits dropped 12.6 per cent to £182.2 million, but was only disclosed in accounts published today.

Thames Water revealed that it hit its target for cutting leaks in its 20,000 miles of pipes for the sixth year running to its lowest level. Mr Baggs also confirmed that the hosepipe ban was likely to be lifted “sooner rather than later” following the recent deluge.

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