Green gap widens in Environmental Performance Assessment

Wessex Water and Severn Trent regained their industry leading four-star ratings for green performance, while Southern Water sunk to a single star – the first firm to be rated as such (poor) since 2015 – in the Environment Agency’s annual Environmental Performance Assessment (EPA), published last week. The report rates each company in England from one-star to four-star, based on a range of measures including serious pollution incidents, pollution per km of sewer pipes and compliance with permits.

Other notable patterns from last year were:

• better: Yorkshire Water moved from two-stars last year to three-stars this year. United Utilities was recognised as the best performer on serious pollution incidents;

• worse: Northumbrian Water, last year’s only four-star performer, fell back to a two-star rating, while Anglian dropped from three-star to two-star;

• same: Thames and United Utilities remained at three-stars, while South West stayed at two.

In further evidence of collective action, government, regulators and the customer watchdog rounded on under performing companies to do better. Leaders from Defra, the Environment Agency (EA), CCW, Ofwat and the Drinking Water Inspectorate said it was not good enough that four of the nine firms rated fell short of expected performance (one or two stars). Both environment secretary, George Eustice, and the EA chair, Emma Howard,

Boyd said they would hold meetings with all underperforming companies to discuss improving their poor performance.