TRADE Unionists have reacted with anger to the news that the former boss of Anglian Water has received a �10 million pay-off after leaving the company earlier this year.

The GMB union, whose members at Anglian Water have seen job losses over recent years, hit out after the payout was revealed in the company's accounts.

Jonson Cox, 54, who joined Anglian Water in 2004, left the company earlier this year and he is now executive chairman of UK Coal.

Mick Ainsley GMB Organiser said: 'Jonson Cox the Head of Anglian water has left the company with a payout of �10 million.

'What is particularly galling and hard for GMB members to swallow is that earlier this year Anglian Water reduced the terms and conditions of water workers and made redundancies claiming poverty in light of the OFWAT determination to stick to the current five year plan.

'The �10 million that he got would well and truly have paid for all the cuts. Talk about 'upstairs, downstairs'.'

Ciaran Nelson of Anglian Water said the money being paid to Mr Cox would not come from bill-payers, it would be paid by the company's owners – three pension funds and investors 3i.

He said bills would be going down by an average of �28 per customer over the next five years.

He added: 'Jonson Cox was Chief Executive of the Anglian Water Group for six years during which the Group recorded a total shareholder return of 595 per cent.

'When he joined Anglian Water the share price was just 525p per share. Robin Saunders had tried to buy Anglian Water for 520p per share.

'Three years later, the sale price to the three pension funds and 3i –the Osprey Consortium –was 1578p per share.

'It's important to emphasise that any reward package was paid by the shareholders in recognition of that success.

'By turning around AWG into an efficient, service-led water company, Jonson delivered tremendous value for shareholders.

'Anglian Water is, for the fourth year running, amongst the top two performing water companies in England and Wales according to Ofwat, the industry regulator.'