14 Jobs Under Threat At Dee Valley – Severn Trent Say No Promises Made Before Takeover

Severn Trent Water have said no promises were made over redundancies prior to a takeover of Dee Valley Water, after an anonymous letter has revealed 14 jobs could be lost.

The anonymous letter made various claims including Severn Trent Water have started to make around 14 former Dee Valley Water employees redundant and placed others at risk of redundancy, adding claims that the outcome was at odds with assurances given before the takeover.

Plaid Cymru’s North Wales AM Llyr Gruffydd raised the matter with the Welsh Government in the Senedd last week, outlining his concerns that workers at Dee Valley Water were being made redundant and raising concerns about the level of customer care the 160,000 Dee Valley Water customers could expect in the wake of this takeover. He said, “The takeover clearly meant that jobs would be lost at Dee Valley, which is why I was opposed to the proposal. This process has begun and my priority now is to ensure that workers in Wrexham don’t find themselves at a disadvantage when competing for jobs within the company. I’ve written to Severn Trent seeking assurances and last week I also raised the matter with the Welsh Government, asking that it is more pro-active in safeguarding Welsh jobs and services.

“It’s clear that further redundancies are anticipated by the company, which has given 12 months for the integration of call centre staff. I am pressing for the retention of call centre staff and other jobs here in Wales rather than seeing everything transferred to Severn Trent’s Coventry headquarters.”

We asked Severn Trent about the claims, and they told us, “Over the last six weeks, we’ve been meeting our new colleagues in Dee Valley and getting to know the business. We understand it’s been an unsettling time for everyone so we’ve worked quickly to review the business and let all our colleagues know about our future plans.

“While the vast majority of employees remain unaffected, it’s inevitable that there are areas of duplication when you bring two businesses together. We’ve therefore worked hard to try to offer impacted employees alternative options if they’d like to stay.

“There are 14 people that we have not been able to identify possible suitable alternative roles for so far. We don’t take this lightly and we’ll be offering these people lots of support if they’re left without a role at the end of the process, including offering outplacement support and contacting local employers and local government.

“We continue to be committed to the Chester and Wrexham bases and can assure customers that these changes won’t affect the excellent service they receive from the Dee Valley teams.”

Severn Trent also denied that a ‘no redundancies’ promise was ever made before the takeover.

Clwyd South AM Ken Skates previously said the retention of jobs in Wrexham was ‘a red line’ for him and MPs Susan Elan Jones and Ian Lucas. He also voiced his concerns that Severn Trent hadn’t offered ‘sufficient guarantees’ over redundancies at Rhostyllen.

He commented to us: “I’m devastated that my fears over job losses arising from this takeover have been realised so soon. Severn Trent claimed their takeover would be good for Welsh customers – which we’re yet to see – but it’s clearly bad for Welsh workers.”

Local MP Ian Lucas MP said: “I am very disappointed, but not surprised, by these redundancies. This was why I opposed the takeover so fiercely in the first place.”

“I think the whole system is rotten to the core and needs to be overhauled completely. Local people have no say over the monopoly of utility services in their area.”