(by Karma Loveday) Just 14.3% of surface waters in England achieved ‘good’ ecological status under the Water Framework Directive Regulations (WFDR) in 2025, according to new data from the Environment Agency (EA). Just 0.1% were ‘high’, 65.4% were ‘moderate’, 17% were ‘poor’ and 3.1% ‘bad’. The EA pointed out that the 14.3% ‘good’ figure is not directly comparable with the 16.3% found to be ‘good’ when classifications were last updated (in 2019, as this happens every six year

(by Karma Loveday) Water UK has urged that the Water Resources Management Plan (WRMP) 29 process be paused to allow companies to engage with the development of a new water supply planning framework. In the interim, it said companies should divert to the highest scenarios of WRMP24 and be allowed to re-open their 2024 plans if they feel their water resource needs have diverged significantly since they were drawn up. The trade body reasoned that WRMP29 guidance contains many of

(by Verity Mitchell) Ofwat has gone out to tender with a three-and-a-half-year contract, worth an estimated £15.6m, to employ an Independent Monitor (IM) to report on Thames Water’s proposed turnaround programme. The IM will undertake monitoring and reporting services across a range of issues at the company, including operational performance, financial resilience, governance and asset management. This tender appears to be independent of any decision in regard to Thames’ curre

(by Verity Mitchell) Rising inflation and interest rates are the biggest challenge for the European infrastructure lending market’s ongoing growth, new research from Nordic Trustee and Ocorian shows. The study found that 31% of infrastructure and private credit fund managers, investment bankers working in private credit, and infrastructure providers have concerns about inflation and high interest rates increasing hurdle rates of investment. Just 6% point to potential cost ove

(by Verity Mitchell) Equity analyst Morningstar has commended United Utilities (UU) as undervalued relative to Severn Trent. It cited re-nationalisation fears, high UK government bonds yields and its relative underperformance in AMP7 compared to Severn Trent. According to the analyst, the prime minister has asked UU to forego its final dividend, payable in August. However it considered this political pressure to have no legal backing. Furthermore, higher government bonds yiel

(by Verity Mitchell) The chief executive of Thames Water, Chris Weston, has again stated publicly in an interview that he considers that the current targets set by Ofwat for leakage and pollutions reduction are unrealistic. He explained the management team “wanted to do better” in regard to pollutions reduction, but argued that the leakage target was “so far in excess of what we are capable of doing”. Weston also continued to commend Thames Water creditors’ recapitalisation p

(by Karma Loveday) Around 1.8m households in England and Wales (6.8%) are in water poverty – spending more than 5% of income after housing costs on water services – according to research by the University of York for the Consumer Council for Water (CCW) using 2024/25 national household survey data. Bills for this group exceeded the affordability threshold by a median of around £337 per year. Affordability challenges are not evenly distributed across England and Wales. The stu

(by Karma Loveday) The Mayor of London has published a Clean Rivers and Waterways Plan – a ten-year vision for waterways that are cleaner, richer in wildlife, easier to access and better connected to the communities around them. The plan – which the Mayor’s office described as “the beginning of one of the world's most ambitious urban waterway clean-up efforts” – contains 48 actions and 17 goals, to be delivered by 2036. Priorities include making London a “swimmable” city; no

(by Karma Loveday) Clean water campaigner River Action has called for all abstraction licences to be reviewed and updated, and for industrial users to have clear plans to drive water efficiency – as competition for water intensifies and hosepipe bans affect 40% of households. It said: “We cannot allow essential public water supplies, sustainable food production and healthy rivers to lose out to wasteful commercial users because the Government failed to plan ahead.” A River Ac

(by Karma Loveday) Last week, the Environment Agency (EA) formally moved the following areas into drought status: East Anglia; Hertfordshire and the whole of London; Thames Valley; Hampshire and the Isle of Wight; Devon and Cornwall; West Midlands; and Wessex (covering Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire and South Gloucestershire). Natural Resources Wales also extended its partial drought designation to the whole of Wales. The EA called this a “flash drought” – a fast developing situ