(by Karma Loveday) Following reports that ministers may consider withdrawing from the Aarhus Convention , 40 of the the biggest environmental NGOs and several King’s Counsel barristers have written to prime minister Sir Keir Starmer to urge that the UK Government reaffirm its commitment to the Convention which guarantees access to information, participation in decision-making, and environmental justice. The Government recently stated in a Parliamentary Question that it had “

(by Karma Loveday) Ofwat has accepted an undertaking from SES Business Water (SESBW) on a return to compliance with the Retail Exit Code (REC) price protections and on compensation for adversely affected business customers. This is instead of an enforcement order, given SESBW has been proactive in putting matters right. SESBW was found to have charged some customers more than allowed for in the REC in 2023, and then for further contraventions including of a regulatory directi

(by Karma Loveday) Brighton and Hove City Council and the University of Brighton have moved into the monitoring phase of a pioneering project to protect 90% of the city’s drinking water – and the health of the chalk aquifer that supplies Brighton – from toxic road pollution. The council has built the Wild Park Rainscape beside the A27 to capture and filter runoff polluted with road-related contaminants (including oil, tyre particles, heavy metals and microplastics) before it

(by Karma Loveday) River health stakeholders have collaborated on a plan of action to deliver effective river monitoring under Section 82 of the Environment Act, which requires water companies to monitor water quality upstream and downstream of treated effluent outflow points, by measuring pH, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, ammonia, temperature, and conductivity. The Testing the Waters Consortium's first face-to-face event brought together representatives from major manufacture

(by Karma Loveday) The Environment Agency has approved Severn Trent’s application for a drought permit to refill the Carsington and Ogden reservoirs in Derbyshire. Severn Trent has an abstraction licence to take water from the River Derwent at Ambergate to fill its Carsington and Ogston reservoirs. The licence stipulates that the water company must reduce abstraction to 15 megalitres of water per day (Ml/d) when the average daily flow in the River Derwent is below 680Ml/d. Th

(by Karma Loveday) River Action has started its legal challenge against Ofwat for allegedly allowing some customers to pay twice for infrastructure improvements. At a hearing last week in Manchester Civil Justice Centre, River Action claimed Ofwat acted unlawfully when it implemented its policy that customers must not pay twice. The clean river campaigner said that in effect, some households would pay for infrastructure improvements to achieve environmental compliance, which

(by Karma Loveday) Ofwat has written to water company regulatory directors inviting them to submit proposals for additional enhancement allowances to support investment linked to demand growth – notably relating to data centres and housing targets. This followed company responses to a March 2025 Ofwat letter about enabling growth, in which the industry highlighted the need for funding mechanisms. Ofwat will consider proposals through the PR24 cost change process submission wi

(by Verity Mitchell) Ofwat has published a performance-related executive pay (PRP) assessment for 2024-5. This is the first year in which Ofwat has had the legislative powers to both prohibit PRP and apply the PRP cost recovery mechanism. The PRP Prohibition Rule is focused on whether a water company should pay PRP or not, and the recovery mechanism is focused on when customers should fund PRP. PRP is prohibited when a company has: breached a principal statutory duty; receive

(by Verity Mitchell) Ofwat has published its Monitoring Financial Resilience report for 2024-2025, in which it sets out its assessment of water company financial resilience. The companies are placed in four categories by Ofwat, as shown in the table: Thames remains in Ofwat’s Turnaround Oversight Regime. The regulator said it “expects Thames to deliver a credible and sustainable plan” to restore financial resilience.  Southern and South East both remain in the Action Require

(by Karma Loveday) Just over half (52%) of business customers are now aware they can choose their water retailer, up from just under half (48%) last year. But contracting levels remained broadly stable on 2023-24, with around 3% switching in the last 12 months and 4% renegotiating. That’s according to Ofwat’s 2024-25 State of the Market report and Business Customer Insight Survey , which was conducted in partnership with the Consumer Council for Water. Both awareness levels a

(by Karma Loveday) The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM) has called on the Government to make “a fresh water future” a reality when it publishes its White Paper following the Cunliffe Review. In a 2025 report, updating on progress and priorities emerging since the January 2024 publication A Fresh Water Future, CIWEM praised government actions to date, including the Water (Special Measures) Act, commissioning the Cunliffe Review and supporting

(by Karma Loveday) River environment charity WildFish is awaiting a High Court decision on the legality of house-building plans in the Buckinghamshire village of Maids Moreton, which it argued would see an already-overwhelmed sewage works discharging even more sewage into the ‘poor’ rated Great Ouse River. The challenge is against Buckinghamshire Council’s decision earlier this year to sign off on planning for the development, but WildFish said: “The High Court’s decision i

(by Karma Loveday) The House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee kicks off its new inquiry into the relationship between regulators and economic growth on Tuesday. The first session will hear from academics and is expected to cover issues including: what regulators can do to support growth; the key challenges and trade-offs between growth and other objectives which regulators have; the strengthening of the Growth Duty; the role the Government should play in encouraging

(by Karma Loveday) Defra and the Welsh Government have laid a Statutory Instrument before Parliament to amend the 2013 Bathing Water Regulations, to give effect to the outcome of the 2024 consultation on modernising the bathing water regime. In a written statement to Parliament, water minister Emma Hardy said there were three core reforms plus some technical amendments:  Core Reform 1 removes automatic de-designation when a bathing water site receives a classification of ‘poo

(by Karma Loveday) Thames Water has opened a statutory consultation on the 150bn litre SESRO reservoir in Oxfordshire. Public input gathered during this consultation, which runs until 13 January, will directly inform the application for planning consent that Thames Water will submit to the Government in Autumn 2026. The consultation includes updates on scheme design and amenity. Anglian Water and Cambridge Water have launched their first public consultation, open until 21 Dec

(by Karma Loveday) England needs at least 100% of average rainfall (482mm) to largely recover from drought by the end of March next year. That came in an update from the Environment Agency to the National Drought Group last week. For context, only two months of 2025 have seen more than 100% so far. Despite recent rain and some alleviation, the water resource situation in England remains a ‘nationally significant incident’. The Group said England should prepare for an ongoing

(by Verity Mitchell) Pimco has sold the majority of its Thames Water bonds to the hedge funds already involved in the restructuring: Apollo, Elliot and Silverpoint. This appears to be profit-taking after the recent price rise of the traded debt. This in itself indicates optimism from the market that the most recent proposals for the financial restructuring of Thames may be viable. The sale may also indicate that Pimco has no interest in the debt to equity swap envisaged in th

(by Karma Loveday) Wales will take the opportunity presented by Independent Water Commission-led reform (IWC) to rethink its water arrangements beyond regulation. In a statement to the Senedd, deputy first minister and cabinet secretary for climate change and rural affairs Huw Irranca-Davies shared the following intentions, in his update on next steps for Wales from the IWC:  To create a new economic water regulator for Wales in line with IWC recommendation, but one that also

(by Karma Loveday) The Government intends to consult on establishing a centrally-led development corporation to deliver nationally significant growth in Greater Cambridge, backed by £400m of initial investment. In a written statement to Parliament, housing minister Matthew Pennycook said the new corporation would build on the work to date of the Cambridge Growth Company (CGC) to “realise the full potential of Greater Cambridge as part of our plans to supercharge growth in the

(by Karma Loveday) Severn Trent has applied for a drought permit to continue abstraction from the River Derwent over winter even if it has low flows due to more dry weather. The company needs to keep Carsington Reservoir topped up for public water supply. Severn Trent said it did not anticipate harm to wildlife or ecology in the river as winter flows are naturally higher anyway. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and Defra have reported using government-b

(by Karma Loveday) Ofwat and Thames Water have agreed that Thames can further defer its decision on whether to apply to the Competition and Markets Authority for a redetermination of its PR24 settlement. The latest deadline to appeal expired last week, but ahead of that the parties agreed on an extension of the deferral – this time with no fixed deadline – to enable Thames to continue its ongoing discussions with creditors. Thames said it remains focused on delivering a recap

(by Karma Loveday) Defra is consulting on enacting Water (Special Measures) Act powers to bolster the Environment Agency’s ability to penalise pollution.  The consultation, open until 3 December, proposed to: Allow the Environment Agency (EA) to use a lower civil standard of proof, instead of criminal, for minor to moderate environmental offences, and set a cap at either £350,000 or £500,000 for penalties issued to the civil standard. Introduce new automatic penalties – “like

(by Karma Loveday) Pollution performance dragged sector results in this year’s Environmental Performance Assessment (EPA) down to a new low for the AMP, with companies collectively earning only just over half of the stars available – 19 out of a maximum 36, compared to last year’s 25 stars. Severn Trent alone secured the highest rating of four stars, maintaining the place from last year and indeed from the whole AMP to date. Last year’s other four-star firms, Wessex Water and

(by Karma Loveday) After a couple of years of there being no performance leaders in the sector according to Ofwat, Portsmouth Water alone managed to outpace the rest and climb to ‘leading’ status in the Water company performance (WCPR) report for 2024/25. Eleven companies made the ‘average’ category, with Anglian Water joining last year’s average cohort after pulling itself out of ‘lagging behind’ last year. Five – up from last year’s three – were considered to be lagging be

(by Karma Loveday) Anglian Water and Cambridge Water are running a third consultation on the Fens Reservoir, open until 10 December. The consultation includes an updated design for the main reservoir site which has taken account of feedback from earlier phases of consultation and features proposals for more water-based and land-based recreation and ideas that would provide views across the water. It also includes more information on the associated water treatment and transpo

(by Karma Loveday) MOSL has published the first round of wholesaler business retail service performance results that will be factored in to determine the first BR-MeX payments for water companies. BR-MeX, the business customer and retailer measure of experience, was introduced at PR24. Wholesalers will be rewarded or penalised based on how retailers (R-MeX) and business customers (B-MeX) score their service performance, with a 50:50 weighting. Table 1 Table 1 shows wholesaler

(by Karma Loveday) The Water Industry Commission for Scotland (WICS) has kicked off its first Market Health Check – a review to verify whether retailers active in the Scottish business market are delivering on their commitments under a new Code of Practice and continuing to meet their licence obligations. Beginning this month, the process will take until July 2026, after which WICS will share the results publicly. This will give business customers information on how their sup

(by Karma Loveday) The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has introduced a raft of late changes to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill which it said were pro-growth and would result in more new homes, more clean energy, and greater water security. The changes included:  Speeding up approval for large reservoirs by enabling non-water companies to build reservoirs that are automatically considered as nationally significant infrastructure projects (NSIPs).  U

(by Karma Loveday) Nearly two-thirds of food and drink manufacturers are feeling a squeeze from water supply and effluent discharge constraints in the form of higher costs and planning delays. That’s according to a survey by water treatment and services specialist Alpheus of its customers and members of the Food and Drink Federation, which include some of the UK’s biggest food and beverage manufacturers. Among the findings were:  61% had experienced increased development cost

(by Karma Loveday) The Government should prepare for at least 2ºC of warming above pre-industrial levels by 2050.  The Climate Change Committee gave that message to floods and water minister Emma Hardy after she requested guidance on setting objectives for climate adaptation. At 2ºC, the Committee said heatwaves become twice as likely; drought risk doubles; peak river flows may increase by 40%; sea levels may rise by up to an additional 25cm; and the wildfire season will beco

(by Verity Mitchell) Northumbrian Water has issued a £300m bond maturing in July 2032, which was around seven times oversubscribed. The bond pays interest of 5.375%, and was issued at a yield equivalent to 120 basis points over Gilts, comfortably inside the initial indicative price of Gilts +140bps. The timing of the bond issue reflects both clarity and upside from the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) recently-published initial view of its redetermination of Ofwat’s

(by Karma Loveday) Ofwat’s new leaders have pledged to take a different and more collaborative approach to regulation as work to create a new integrated regulator is taken forward. In a blog, Chris Walters, interim chief executive, and Helen Campbell, interim executive director of delivery, explained: "Ofwat did its best under the previous regulatory structure, but we acknowledge that the previous regulatory approach, including Ofwat’s, did not act fast enough to prevent the

(by Karma Loveday) Stars will be swapped for number ratings under a revamp of the Environmental Performance Assessment (EPA) system, that will also see pollution incident numbers appear to increase. This has been justified by Defra and the Environment Agency on the basis of taking a tougher stance on pollution and increasing transparency.  The Agency has published details of previously consulted on (in October to December 2024) changes to the EPA for 2026-30. The current 1 to

(by Karma Loveday) Representatives of the Citizens Arrest Network last week visited the head offices of eight water companies with the...

(by Verity Mitchell) RSK, a holding company which provides environmental and engineering solutions through a large portfolio of companies, has reported full-year results to 6 April 2025. There is strong revenue growth, partly driven by acquisitions but revealing cost challenges to its margins. Revenue was £2.2bn, up 21% over the previous year. Net fee income after external project costs was £1.1bn, up 13%. Staff costs absorbed 76% of net fee income, resulting in group reporte

(by Karma Loveday) Law firm Leigh Day has filed a group claim in the High Court against the pollution of the Rivers Wye, Usk and Lugg....

(by Karma Loveday) The Environment Agency has published a supportive position statement on the use of desalination for public water...

(by Karma Loveday) The moratorium on housebuilding in North Sussex has been lifted following an agreement reached through Defra’s Water...

(by Karma Loveday) The Environment Agency (EA) has declared drought in the parts of Sussex supplied by South East Water, due to declining...

a) Summary (by Karma Loveday) The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has made the following provisional determinations (PDs) in the...

(by Karma Loveday) *Based on the Summary of provisional determinations  published this morning — more detail will be added once the full...

Retailer Wave and wholesaler Northumbrian Water have partnered to provide free water-saving services to 1,400 schools in the Northumbrian...

The Consumer Council for Water (CCW) will not now recommend small businesses are removed from the retail market. The confirmation came as...

Fifty-one environment projects in the areas served by Anglian Water, South West Water, Thames Water, Yorkshire Water and United Utilities...

Northumbrian Water pipped Wessex Water to the post for first place in the latest C-MeX survey of household customer experience, the full...

New environment secretary Emma Reynolds gave nothing away about ministers’ plans for water reform in her Labour Party conference speech...

Ofwat has published its consultation on the Blind Year Reconciliation for 2024-2025. This sets out its proposed adjustments to the revenues and Regulatory Capital Values (RCVs) of the companies now that it has details of actual performance for 2024-2025. These adjustments reflect the difference between Ofwat’s and the companies’ assumptions on how 2024-2025 would outturn. This is a normal regulatory process as the PR24 final determination was published before the financial ye

Thames has launched a first-of-its kind scheme to automatically enrol customers in financial difficulty onto its social tariff schemes....

The Purposeful Finance Commission (PFC) has called for an Olympic-style national champion for reservoirs and for new powers for regional...

Affinity Water’s current chief executive, Keith Haslett, will take over from Susan Davy as chief executive of Pennon Group, which owns...