Sewage spills to be a focus of Defra’s PR24 guidance for Ofwat

Environment secretary, George Eustice, has said Defra is "putting a real focus on tackling sewage incidents in our future water strategy, which will inform Ofwat’s approach to the pricing reviews that it has with water companies”.

He was responding to a Parliamentary question posed last week on Earth Day (22 April) by his shadow, Luke Pollard. Pollard asked: “Will the secretary of state commit to take fast action against water companies that are pumping raw sewage into our rivers, killing fish, killing habitats and killing birds, and do so while committing to no further roll-back of environmental protections?”

Along with his comment about the future water strategy, Eustice said he had already acted in this area in convening a taskforce to look at combined sewer overflows.