The Environment Agency has published its annual Environmental Performance Assessment (EPA) report of the environmental performance of England’s nine water and sewerage companies during 2023.
The EPA is the only independent comparison of environmental performance across the sector. While it shows an improvement in star ratings, the majority of companies continue to underperform.
The report found the number of serious pollution incidents increased from 44 in 2022 to 47 in 2023 and over 90% of these were caused by four companies (Anglian Water, Southern Water, Thames Water and Yorkshire Water), resulting in a polarised performance picture across the sector. The total pollution incidents from sewerage and water supply assets increased to 2,174 – the second consecutive annual increase and highest number recorded since 2019.
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Steve Reed said:
These findings are shocking. For too long, water companies have pumped record levels of sewage into our rivers, lakes and seas. This Government will never let this happen again.
We have announced immediate steps to put water companies under tough special measures and begin the work of cleaning up our waterways.
The Water (Special Measures) Bill will strengthen regulation to turn the tide on the unacceptable destruction of our waterways, ensuring water companies deliver for customers and the environment and attract private-sector investment to upgrade our crumbling infrastructure.
Change will take time, and we will outline further legislation to fundamentally transform our water industry and restore our rivers, lakes and seas to good health.
Environment Agency Chair Alan Lovell said:
For the nation to have cleaner rivers and seas, water companies must take responsibility to understand the root cause of their problems.
It is promising to see some companies starting to accept their responsibilities, but it is evident that the pace of improvement continues to fall short.
We frequently tighten standards to drive better performance and we have been clear that we expect all companies to achieve, and most critically sustain, better environmental performance.
As part of this we are taking forward our biggest ever transformation in the way we regulate, recruiting up to 500 additional staff, increasing compliance checks and quadrupling the number of water company inspections by March next year. Through additional resources, tightened EPA metrics and new legal powers, we will be playing our part to ensure the industry steps up on the environment.
Water Minister Emma Hardy will meet with the bosses of the five water companies that received a 2-star rating, to hear directly from them about how they plan to improve their environmental performance.
The Secretary of State for Environment Food and Rural Affairs Steve Reed has already announced a series of initial steps towards ending the crisis in the water sector:
- After writing to Ofwat, the Secretary of State has secured agreement that funding for vital infrastructure investment is ringfenced and can only be spent on upgrades benefiting customers and the environment. Ofwat will also ensure that when money for investment is not spent, companies refund customers, with money never allowed to be diverted for bonuses, dividends or salary increases.
- Water companies will place customers and the environment at the heart of their objectives. Companies have agreed to change their ‘Articles of Association’ – the rules governing each company – to make the interests of customers and the environment a primary objective.
- Strengthen protection and compensation for households and businesses when their basic water services are affected. Subject to consultation, the amount of compensation customers are legally entitled to when key standards are not met will more than double. The payments will also be triggered by a wider set of circumstances including Boil Water Notices.
In addition, the Water (Special Measures) Bill outlined in the First Kings Speech will:
- Strengthen regulation to ensure water bosses face personal criminal liability for lawbreaking.
- Give the water regulator new powers to ban the payment of bonuses if environmental standards are not met.
- Boost accountability for water executives through a new ‘code of conduct’ for water companies, so customers can summon board members and hold executives to account.
- Introduce new powers to bring automatic and severe fines.
- Require water companies to install real-time monitors at every sewage outlet with data independently scrutinised by the water regulators.
2 comments
Comment by Julie Houldershaw posted on
Will this real time monitoring on storm overflows include the nearly 500 storm overflows that are not permitted? All water companies have from EIR requests storm overflows not permitted. Plus it seems that some water companies have storm overflows, that if they would only overflow in a once in 30 year storm, they do not need to be permitted. What investigation powers does the EA have to investigate and locate unpermitted storm overflows?
Comment by alan wightman posted on
Dear Mr. Steve Reed,
Commendable on `paper´ but "will take time" certainly as the Water Companies will expertly procrastinate in prolongation of expenditure well profitbably practiced these past 20 years. The Government should go further by part-nationalisation, i.e. 51% to `their´ 49% because starting with Thames Water they will minimize investment, go into debt & abscond with these new enforcement measures left only on paper.