A UNION has shamed Thames Water for rewarding shareholders with hundreds of millions of pounds.

Water union the GMB claims the company's shareholders have pocketed £200m in the past five years, half of which it said was accrued in 2017 alone.

The figure comes from a joint investigation into the accounts by GMB and not-for-profit research group Corporate Watch.

It said this is in the context of customers being forced to foot the bill for trillions of litres of water lost in leaks.

GMB general secretary Tim Roache said: "Forking out billions to shareholders, while bills rocket and trillions of litres of water are wasted shows just how broken the system is.

"We all need water, it’s not an optional extra, it’s absurd that something we all depend on is in private hands delivering eye-watering pay outs instead of being run for the public good."

The investigation was part of the GMB's Take Back the Tap project, which campaigns to bring England’s privatised water industry back into public ownership.

Thames Water's annual report, released in June, revealed it leaked 695 million litres of water per day and admitted "We know [this has] let customers down."

Though the report insisted it was keeping customers' bills 'affordable', it added: "Undetected leaks have a negative impact on customer bills, as well as wasting precious resources."

Thames Water has carried out a string of roadworks to fix problems in and around Oxford recently, including sewer works in Botley and a leak repair in Cutteslowe.