WATER bosses came under fire today after revealing its profits have leapt to almost £1 million a day - as one of the worst droughts on record drags on.

North West Water saw its profits rise by 22 per cent to £167 million in the six months to September - equivalent to £23 for every resident .

And shareholders in the privatised firm, which earlier this month won control of Norweb, will receive dividend payments up by 11 per cent.

The results prompted calls from the water watchdog and MPs in the North West to give customers a better deal.

"Obviously if a company in our region is producing such profits and it leads to employment for people here they should be congratulated.

But I'm not sure that the shareout between customers and shareholders is a fair one." said Mr Anthony Goldstone, chairman of OFWAT's North West committee.

"Customers have paid a lot of money for water over the years and it is time they were recognised as the number one stakeholder in the company." The firm, which saw turnover rise to £531 million, said it was committed to sharing out more of its profits with customers with an extra £345 million earmarked up to the year 2000 and rebates for customers of £6.50 every year.

The firm has also announced that it has payed out £200,000 in compensation to customers for failing to meet its Customer Charter standards,

And NWW also said it recognised how unpopular restrictions on water use were among its customers and was taking action to prevent similar problems in the future.

The firm said that it was taking action to try and ensure the restrictions imposed on customers this year would not be needed by the year 2000.

"A tremendous effort has been made to ensure that essential supplies have been maintained. Our customers have helped a great deal by responding to our request to control the non-essential use of water," said the firm.

But it said it now recognised that restrictions were "no longer palatable to our customers".

Mr Goldstone said he was quite staggered by NWW's comments about the drought.

"They attacked me for being aggressive over this issue in July and now they seem to be saying I was right all along. Perhaps if they had started looking at this problem in 1990 instead of now we wouldn't be in the situation we are."

Hyndburn MP Greg Pope said it was "amazing" that a company could make such profits when it was not providing a proper service to its customers.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.