DEBT-laden Thames Water will be temporarily nationalised under government plans should it collapse.
The utility has 15million customers around London, providing 2.7billion litres of drinking water a day.
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But it is drowning under a £14billion debt pile and needs to restructure £1.5billion of it.
One option that emerged from contingency talks is to place it in special administration, in effect nationalising it briefly, much as the government did with collapsed energy supplier Bulb.
Water minister Rebecca Pow said: “There is a lot of work going on behind the scenes to ensure customers will not be impacted.
“There is a process in place if necessary to move us to the next stage.”
Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch added: “We need to make sure Thames Water as an entity survives.
“There’s a lot of work that the government is trying to do on resolving sewage.
“Up until now, the regulator has been focused on keeping consumer bills down.
“But there’s a lot of infrastructure that needs to take place, and we need that entity to survive.”
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The plans were discussed hours after the company’s chief executive Sarah Bentley left abruptly on Tuesday.
Publicly traded bonds in Thames Water fell 35p to 72p in the pound yesterday.
