Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

UK Public utilities info needed

Nuggett | 05.08.2002 19:01

uk utilities and american interest The poor man exploited for all he's worth and if he aint worth nothing then give him nothing are these American energy providers welcome in the uk

uk utilities and american interest The poor man exploited for all he's worth and if he aint worth nothing then give him nothing are these American energy providers welcome in the uk

I am currently being hassled by british gas who are demanding 25.05 ireceived a telegram from them to say that someone would call to disconnect the gas supply with the police present in the next few days this is despite them not being my energy supplier
(they say it is for the period when i first occupied the property despite me informing them before occupation that i had arranged my gas provision through another supplier)

i've phoned them on more than one occasion to tell them i am not paying any money to them and if i owe any money for debt accrued i shall pay it to my new supplier
(i did not want any dealings with BG whatsoever as they played some underhand tactics in the last property asking for security deposits to the tune of 150 pounds or gas disconnected etc)

anyways after looking on the bill they had sent i noticed they were owned by Centrica and i got to thinking who are Centrica anyway so i did a little poking around (as u do)and found out they were a big american energy provider so naturally curious i decided to look up some other major energy providers in the uk and it turns out the ones i looked at were all parented by big energy companies in dallas and texas and the like

i feel that their working practice in relation to poorer members of society is not what it should be and that as a direct result of this many less well of people in the uk particularly those renting houses are being monopolised and bullied by BG ie Centrica .

i am looking for info from anyone who has experienced rough treatment at the hands of these barons particularly when you are struggling financially not just centrica but all your local utility providers .it is possible that this material will be used in forthcoming book

further to this i am wondering if anyone happens to have any collated data on uk energy suppliers parent groups ,this would save me a lot of time and messing around

on top of this if enough people respond i may instigate a petition to email mp's throughout the country demanding that local utilities should be run by local companies and should protect the interests of all members of society something i feel the American energy giants are completely overlooking at present

i know this is not a high priority for any of you just now, what with the international and domestic scenes all to fuck but i would appreciate any info that you could give me particularly with ownership of and working practices worldwide of some of the uk energy providers american parent groups

cheers in advance for any help

Nuggett! {>}

Nuggett
- e-mail: websignup@dsl.pipex.com

Comments

Hide the following 6 comments

watch manweb, unless its dark

05.08.2002 20:40

sorry to here about your possible disconection.

here in cheshire we are having the opposite problem.

I'm currently working for the street lighting dept of a county council, for many months (since december last year), we have had problems with a backlog of work with manweb

manweb supply the feed to our columns, if there is a problem with the power supply they have to connect us. If a new column is errected, they supply the feed.

The problem is the tax payer fronts the bill, and manweb in return take months to supply energy to the column. Street lighting is not just so you can see where you are going, it plays a major role in crime prevention, and also in road saftey. Manweb are costing lives and security to many, because of a backlog of work due to industrial action where they refused to help the workers.

I hear where you are coming from, especially as the tax payer can not fine manweb or disconect them (nationalise)

I appologise if i did not articulate myself well in the reply, but i only had a few minutes to do so. If you wan't more information on the situation regarding email me at  dave@robotindex.co.uk

dave d


info on privatisation etc

06.08.2002 12:00

You might find some useful info + links at the website of the Centre for Public Services:

union dinosaur
- Homepage: http://www.centre.public.org.uk/


Who owns whom

06.08.2002 13:03

The Electricity Association in the UK publish a document called "Who owns whom" at  http://www.electricity.org.uk/about_ea/bic_pub/who_owns_whom.pdf It tells you about current owners of electricity distribution companies, which covers most of the electricity suppliers.

I'm not sure where you got your information about Centrica. Although it's no one's favourite company, it is actually British. In 1997 (I think) the old privatised British Gas split into two companies - British Gas Trading (which sells gas and adopted the name Centrica as a jazzy customer relations move) and BG Transco, which owns the pipelines. Since then, BGT/Centrica has got into electricity, telephone supply and has bought the AA. But it is still British, at least as much as any company which is owned by shareholders can be said to have a nationality (shareholders could live anywhere). They have bought a lot of companies in the US - so it's actually Americans who should be complaining about foreign owners in this case! Transco is now merging with National Grid, the privatised owner of the electricity transmission system.

The comment about Manweb is also a bit misplaced - Manweb is owned by Scottish Power, which is also British (but also owns a lot of stuff in the US).

That's not to say that the UK energy industry is mostly British, though - you just picked some odd examples. National Power and PowerGen, the largest generators, are now both owned by German parent companies. Edison, American Electric Power, Texas Utilities all own power stations and are as American as their names suggest. Seeboard was sold to Electricite de France (EdF) recently. EdF also owns London Electricity and Eastern Power networks, so it basically owns all of the wires in the entire South-East region. In addition, EdF owns several electricity retail supply businesses and power stations. EdF is state-owned. So 12 years after privatisation, a very large part of the power industry is back in Government ownership. Just not our Government....

jdjd


Centrica is american jdjd

06.08.2002 18:45

Centrica is american jdjd
Centrica is american jdjd

 http://www.centrica.co.uk/framesets/frontfset.htm

mmmmm look here jdjd thanks for info but i still reckon centrica are american but i am goin gto go look closely at the major shareholders interests elsewhere

Nuggett! {>}

Nuggett!


Well...I don't want an argument

07.08.2002 09:03

...about the ownership because I'm not disputing your two main points: that a lot, probably most, of Britain's energy system is owned by overseas companies, and that British Gas are crap.

But just to be nerdy about it, your picture just shows that Centrica owns several American companies, not the other way about. There are few American companies whose chairman and chief executive are both "Sirs". There's a document here  http://www.centrica.co.uk/pdf/corp_profile.pdf which states that "Centrica plc
Company registered in England No. 3033654
Registered office: Millstream, Maidenhead Road
Windsor, Berkshire SL4 5GD
www.centrica.com"

You may well be right about the nationality of major shareholders, though. This is what I meant about it being fairly meaningless to describe shareholder-owned companies as having a nationality. Anyone with money, from any country, can buy shares in Centrica. Ditto American companies like IBM or General Motors: in principle if a large enough number of Chinese people bought shares in those, they could be considered Chinese-owned.

I doubt that you will be able to discover the nationality, or even identity, of Centrica's major shareholders. Good luck trying, though.

jdjd


NO GRAMMAR QUEENS

07.08.2002 22:34

part of the problem with postig on forums such as this is that grammar queens prevail your text is taken out of context and serialisations applied this detracts from the whole issue raised in the first place and is pretty much how the squabbles start and the issue gets lost amongst the drive toprove each other wrong

please note jdjd i was not really researching the identity or the nationality of major shareholders i had already done this i left the shareholders names there for you to look up so as to prove my original point that they are owned by american power moguls in dallas etc etc

i do not wish to get into a long protracted arguement over what was essentially a query about whether anyone was having trouble with their local utility provider neither did i ask for a critique of my initial posting i did however ask for info regarding the parentage of such utility providers if you can help with this say something if you can't say nothing

sorry to be blunt and everything but if you want to get nerdy on my nerdiness then i am gonna get nerdier on your nerdiness of my nerdiness
kappiche
lol

peace
Nuggett! {>}

Nuggett! {<<H8theG8>>}
mail e-mail: websignup@dsl.pipex.com


Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech