Anglian Water and Welsh Water each receive a c£1.4m fine

Anglian Water has been fined a record £1.42m at Northampton Crown Court following a prosecution by the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) for drinking water failures affecting around 1.3m people.

Anglian Water reported the failures to the Drinking Water Inspectorate in 2021 and pleaded guilty in court to five offences under regulation 31 of the Water Supply (Water Quality) Regulations 2016. These regulations ensure only tested, approved and safe materials come into contact with drinking water.

The case concerned Anglian’s use of unapproved plastic-based products to externally coat pipework submerged within its drinking water tanks. These coatings later broke down into flakes and powder which entered the water supply. The affected pipes were installed between 2016 and 2019 and remained in supply until 2021. All of the issues identified across Anglian Water’s network have now been rectified.

Meanwhile, Welsh Water was fined £1.35m and ordered to pay £70,000 costs after pleading guilty to over 800 breaches of its environmental permits to discharge sewage. The charges related to Welsh Water’s self-monitoring data submitted to Natural Resources Wales (NRW) as part of its 2020 and 2021 annual reports. Due to the volume of non-compliances, the charges were summarised into 18 offences for the court’s benefit.

NRW said its officers were alarmed to find the quality of the information provided in the 2020 annual report had deteriorated compared to previous years, with over 600 breaches recorded. These were spread across some 300 sites across Wales and Herefordshire. Welsh Water explained that an internal restructure of the sampling team and IT-related scheduling issues, coupled with the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, were the main factors in the deterioration.

While the situation had significantly improved by the submission of the 2021 annual report, a number of non-compliances were again identified.