According to Bailey, the UK is currently the only developed country that does not have full water metering or plans to achieve it.
Speaking at the Water UK annual leakage conference in Birmingham today, he said that there was a “very broad agreement” among customers that water metering was a good idea in principle but in practice “it becomes more polarised”.
“There is definitely a hard line segment that are very anti , who just don’t except the commodification of water,” he said.
While Bailey said Thames would like to move towards individual metering for households, he told Utility Week that universal metering in the UK water industry was “decades off”.
Bailey also described leakage as the “single most important factor concerning the reputation of water companies”.
“Leakage is highly visible – it is a problem that customers see when they are out and about and hear about through media,” he said.
The level of leakage from the Thames Water network is currently at its lowest level, down a third since its peak in 2004.
Bailey said this was a result of Thames replacing 1,400 miles of ageing Victorian mains under London.
Despite this, customer research, conducted by Thames Water, demonstrates that the majority of customers do not think Thames Water is doing enough to tackle leakage.
“Customers are surprised that we are hitting leakage targets, but rather than say well done, they say “your targets aren’t hard enough”, said Bailey.