Water UK apology sours as penny drops that £10bn will go on bills

The initially positive response to Water UK’s public apology for failing to respond promptly enough to sewage spill anger soured over the weekend as indignation grew that it would be customers rather than shareholders footing the £10bn clean-up bill pledged for 2025-30.

The apology, fronted by Water UK’s new chair, Ruth Kelly, came with a three-commitment plan to:

• triple investment to £10bn in the next five years;

• create an independently overseen data hub providing information overflow use; and

• support for new river swimming areas.

Triple investment

The pledged £10bn would cut sewage overflows by up to 140,000 each year compared to the level in 2020. A National Overflow Plan was promised for summer, detailing when, where and how improvements would be made by each company. Many of the examples of work given concerned grey infrastructure including storm tanks, bigger pipes and increased treatment works capacity, though nature-based solutions were also mentioned.

Data Hub

Create within a year a new, independently-overseen National Environment Data Hub to provide the public near real time information on the operation of all 15,000 sewage overflows in England. Water quality data will be added when this comes on stream.

River swimming

The support will go to up to 100 communities with resources and expertise to apply for new river swimming areas.

The apology was widely welcomed initially as an acceptance of industry responsibility and as the first step towards finding solutions. However, pairing the sorry with a £10bn clean-up bill soured sentiment once it sunk in that this would be customer-funded.

Common arguments have included that shareholders should pay to clean up "their" mess; that asking customers to pay will effectively mean them "paying twice" given bills since privatisation have covered sewage treatment; and that dividends will be paid out simultaneously to bills increasing.

The Observer, for instance, cited analysis by public-ownership champion, Professor David Hall of Greenwich University, that, based on 2022 prices, dividends from the nine English water and sewerage companies will total £14.7bn between now and 2030, costing customers £624 each by 2030.

Elsewhere, some have called for the government and regulators to apologise alongside the industry for their part in the sewage "scandal". Meanwhile, promises of an accelerated clean up did nothing to allay the concerns of campaigners around the country who took part in a mass Paddle Out Protest this weekend organised by Surfers Against Sewage.

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Southern chief becomes the fifth to forego his bonus

Southern Water’s Lawrence Gosden announced he would join the chief executives of Thames, Yorkshire, South West and Welsh Water in foregoing his bonus. Commenting on the Water UK £10bn storm overflow announcement, Gosden said: “Our board is sensitive to customer concerns on remuneration and has developed pay and bonus policies that reflect our environmental and customer service performance, as well as the challenges of our turnaround. In my first year as chief executive, I will not be taking any bonus, because we have clearly not met the wider expectations of our customers.”

Welsh Water publishes a rivers manifesto

Welsh Water has published a Manifesto for Rivers, committing to £840m of investment to 2025 and a further £1.4bn between 2025 and 2030. Chief executive, Peter Perry, said: “The Manifesto for Rivers in Wales responds directly to the First Minister’s calls at last year’s Phosphate Summit for every sector to own their contribution to the pressures facing Welsh rivers, with additional investment committed specifically to reduce phosphorous in the five failing Special Area of Conservation (SAC) rivers – the Wye, Usk, Teifi, Cleddau and Dee rivers.”

Welsh Water said it will materially accelerate progress on improving river water quality by:

• investing £133m to eliminate 90% of the harm caused by phosphorous from wastewater treatment works outflows in SAC catchments by 2030 and 100% by 2032;

• tackling first the storm overflows that are having the biggest environmental impact, moving 100% to the ‘very low or no harm’ category by 2040; and

• developing catchment permitting and nature-based solution approaches at smaller, more rural sites where the conventional, carbon intensive, WwTW phosphorus removal process is likely to be sub-optimal.

There were additional commitments relating to information provision, transparency, partnership working and affordability.

Yorkshire shareholders pitch in to pre-2025 sewage clean up plan

Yorkshire Water said it would target 190 high-spill storm overflows in a £180m discharge reduction programme to run across its region through to 2025. The investment will be partly shareholder funded and deliver increased wastewater treatment works storage; reduced infiltration to sewers; preventing surface water entering the system; and small changes to works operations.

The work has already started and as a minimum will reduce discharges by 20% but will often go further.

Yorkshire noted the new £180m programme is in addition to the £147m already being spent as part of its 2025-30 business plan, and the work being planned between 2025 and 2030.