Anglian Water ordered to pay £63m for sewage failures
A years-long investigation by the water regulator, Ofwat, found the company had failed to properly operate and upgrade its sewage works and that the firm's leadership did not have sufficient oversight in place.
The company has been issued with an 'enforcement package', to be paid by shareholders rather than customers, to clean up the environment. Among the measures is a £57 million scheme to remove and reduce water pollution in eight catchments in the company's region, which spans East Anglia and neighbouring counties.
'Our investigation has found failures in how Anglian Water has operated and maintained its sewage works and networks, which has resulted in excessive spills from storm overflows. This is a serious breach and is unacceptable,' said Lynn Parker, senior director for enforcement at Ofwat.
The payout is the latest stemming from a major investigation launched in 2021 by Ofwat and the Environment Agency (EA) into whether firms were routinely failing to meet permits for handling sewage. Yorkshire Water and Northumbrian Water have agreed to pay £40 million and £15.7 million respectively, while South West Water was told to pay £24 million. Thames Water, Britain's biggest water company, was given a penalty of £104 million.
Anglian was found to have systematically failed to manage its sewage treatment assets effectively since 2017. In 2021, 56 per cent of outfalls at its wastewater treatment works spilt raw sewage into waterways at least 20 times. A further 21 per cent spilt more than 60 times, suggesting routine rather than exceptional discharges.
Many high-spilling incidents were attributed to operational and asset maintenance issues, which the company failed to resolve swiftly. Anglian was unable to provide up-to-date records of the volumes of sewage it could handle in storm tanks, which are vital to stopping sewage spills into rivers during heavy rainfall. Recent surveys showed that 16 per cent of the company's treatment works still had tanks smaller than required by permits.
• Alistair Osborne: Let the great water clean-up begin
Ofwat also expressed concern over the company's wider environmental record. Anglian recorded 11 serious pollution incidents in both 2022 and 2023, exceeding its targets. Since 2019 it has been prosecuted by the EA more than ten times for a series of pollution incidents. A serious pollution incident resulted in the company's chief executive, Mark Thurston, being banned from receiving a bonus this year under a new law passed by the Labour government.
Ofwat and elements of the EA will soon be merged into a new 'super-regulator' to protect rivers and seas, after ministers accepted five of 88 recommendations in a landmark review into water reform. The rest are being considered over the summer.
'We understand the need to rebuild trust with customers and that aspects of our performance need to improve to do that. Reducing pollution and spills is our number-one operational focus,' said Thurston.
A court on Monday separately ordered East Midlands airport to pay a £900,000 fine for polluting local waterways with de-icer from aircraft and runways. Campaigners had previously raised the alarm over the impact on fish in the River Trent and Diseworth Brook.
The Times's Clean it Up campaign is calling for better regulation and swift investment to protect the nation's rivers and seas.
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