Water companies have a unique 'life jacket' in tough economic times. Unlike most businesses, they don’t need to fight for customers, they have a regional monopoly on an essential resource. Some may say this is a licence to print money, guaranteeing dividends and executive bonuses.

When Margaret Thatcher privatised the UK water industry, the risks of financial exploitation were well understood.

Ofwat was created to regulate the industry, ensuring companies charged fair prices while maintaining high-quality drainage and waste management. Every five years, water companies submit Asset Management Plans (AMPs) to Ofwat, detailing how they will invest in infrastructure. These investments are ultimately funded by customer bills - we pay for everything. Taxpayers fund Ofwat and the Environment Agency, while customers cover investor dividends and executive pay.

Ofwat negotiates and approves the levels of investment by water companies, the levels of customer bills, dividends and bonuses. In return, water companies make promises to reduce pollution. In the last AMP7, period water companies promised to reduce pollution by 30%. But Asset Management Plans are not legally binding!

Five years have passed, and at the end of the AMP7 period, we learn that the average improvement was only 2%. The level of penalty fines that resulted are so low as to be absorbed as a reasonable ‘business cost’. The AMP 8 period (2025 to 2030) has begun with more promises from South West Water accompanied by the highest-ever hikes in customer bills, which have been approved – by Ofwat. We will all now have to pay an extra £110 per year on our water bills. We have no choice.

The government tasks the Environment Agency to agree on Discharge Permits for every sewage and wastewater treatment work in the country, setting legally binding limits to the pollution that water companies are permitted to discharge into our waters. However, water companies have consistently failed to comply with Discharge Permits.

The Environment Agency has failed to prevent widescale illegal pollution. A BBC investigation (June 2024) alleged that there had been 6,000 potentially illegal sewage spills 2022 across the country during dry weather periods. Whilst the EA is now undertaking many prosecutions of water companies, the fines are not punitive and the proportion of pollution incidents that should be prosecuted is disappointingly very low. Nothing has improved as a result of fines.

Water companies can release untreated sewage into rivers and seas when it rains to prevent filth from flooding homes. These are called Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs). However, companies are now abusing this system, using CSOs illegally instead of investing in necessary sewage treatment expansion.

The Government is setting high targets for new homes to be built and yet has not made water companies Statutory Consultees in planning applications. Why not?

Joint Local Plans and Development Management Committees have not been able to consider the ‘spare hydraulic capacity’ of local SWW treatment works when granting planning permissions.

A recent Freedom of Information request by Avon River Champions to SWW has now obtained information about the spare hydraulic capacity of all treatment works in South Hams. This has been made available to SHDC Overview & Scrutiny Committee. Campaigners are already scrutinising this data and comparing it to local reported CSO levels. Can we trust this data?

The compliance of water companies with Discharge Permits was initially enforced by a fully funded Environment Agency which had the authority to make unannounced visits to monitor effluent levels above and below outlets.

In 2010 the EA grant for water quality monitoring was £120 million. Funding fell by 66% to £40 million in 2020.

The number of EA samples and sampling points has fallen by nearly 50% since 2013.

Nationally only 14% of the rivers in England are classed by EA as having 'good ecological status', down from 27% in 2010.

As a result of the failures of Ofwat and the Environment Agency, community groups are now having to raise funding to monitor the quality of the local river water. The EA data is never ‘current’ because it is based on data collected over the previous 6 years. Many people no longer consider it a reliable indicator of the current state of our rivers.

Channel 4 documentary Britain’s Water Scandal in Dispatches (2023) revealed some disturbing facts about the widespread poor hydraulic capacity of treatment works across the country. This results in high CSOs in our rivers.

Ofwat has given water companies the authority to self-monitor their pollution and tell the EA what category of pollution incident has occurred at their treatment plants. Serious pollution incidents are classed as Category 1 or 2. The EA is only allowed to attend serious incidents. This erodes the integrity of the Environmental Performance Assessment ‘EPA- Star Ratings’ of water companies. Despite what is an apparently lax system, South West Water still only achieved a 2-star rating in 2023 out of 4 stars – meaning the company “required improvement”.

Channel 4 Researchers uncovered hundreds of ‘unconsented’ combined storm overflows which do not even have a Discharge Permit and are not monitored by the EA. The EA must have known about these ‘unconsented’ systems and have turned a blind eye to them. Unconsented, not monitored, polluting with impunity. Are you happy about that?

In April 2023, South West Water (SWW) was fined £2,150,000 for environmental offences. This was the largest fine ever imposed for environmental offences in Devon and Cornwall including illegal discharges and breaches of environmental permit conditions at sewage treatment works and pumping stations. The underlying profit of SWW in 2023/2024 was £166.3 million.

These fines were to be channelled into community groups working to restore the health of rivers via the government’s new Water Restoration Fund which was launched in April 2024. Avon River Champions made a bid for funding by the deadline on 7th June 2024 together with Sustainable Blackawton and Friends of Salcombe Kingsbridge Estuary. We developed a plan for a BluePrint to restore the health of our waters in the River Avon, River Gara, Slapton Ley and the Salcombe Kingsbridge Estuary by 2027. However, the General Election and concerns about ‘black holes’ in the country’s finances have delayed the announcement of the successful applicants. We remain hopeful of a positive outcome to this bid.

The Water Framework Directive sets legally binding targets for water bodies to reach Good Ecological Status so that aquatic wildlife thrives- by 2027. That’s only two years away. Over six-year periods, the EA undertakes extensive assessments to classify defined sections of every river as either Poor, Moderate, Good or Excellent, ecological status. Nationally only 16% of water bodies (parts of rivers) are of Good Ecological status.

The Office of Environmental Protection, which audits whether the Government will meet its legally binding targets, reported (May 24) that there were ‘deeply concerning failures’ on the part of the Government to properly implement regulations designed to protect rivers, lakes and coastal waters in England and that key targets for improvement will be missed. The Environment Agency is the only body which can ‘hold water companies to account’ because they alone have the legal powers to do this. We can let water companies know how annoyed we are but water companies are not legally obliged to take any notice of us.

This is a political hot potato. Have a look at the Devon Rivers Manifesto, promoted by Avon River Champions at www.avon-river-champions.org. Whilst our government has continuously kicked this ball down the road and failed to take control of the situation, local community groups remain committed to restoring the health of our local rivers and estuaries by 2027. We have a plan – River Water Quality Groups. We are not going to move the goalposts.