Tax

[Ashy]

I'll consider it but in our houses, the pipe comes out of the ground inside the house and feeds the next house so a meter would have to go above that junction. It's not in a convenient place. They actually installed a meter in the road where it feed six houses and sent me the bill which was £2000 as I recall. And they broke the stopcock and had to call another team to mend it. 

[klondike]

With that much cash involved each year I'd spend  time trying.  If they won't fit one that link said you can request an estimated usage bill instead of basing it on property value.

[JBR]

I don't think I mentioned it, but since we got our water meter, our charges have dropped substantially.
I assume that without the water meter, the water bill was simply estimated, so I'm glad we went for the meter.

Incidentally, there has been a very slight drip from that mains tap before we got the meter, which I couldn't stop.  Not much at all, so it didn't really bother me.  Gone now, of course.