The water regulator finally wakes up to the stench of the sewage scandal
Has Ofwat woken from its slumbers? There are encouraging signs. On the troubled issue of sewage – specifically, the vast quantities of the stuff pumped into rivers – the water regulator in England and Wales is suddenly talking as if it means business.
“From what we have seen so far, the scale of the issue here is shocking,” said David Black, chief executive, in unusually strong language as he added South West Water, owned by quoted group Pennon, to the list of firms targeted with enforcement cases connected to the management of treatment works.
There is a question of whether Ofwat has a right to be shocked. It has regulated the sector since privatisation 30 years ago, so should have uncovered the industry’s dirty secrets by now. But the joint investigation with the Environment Agency (EA) into potentially illegal spills at treatment works, launched last November, is shaping up – possibly – as a major event.
The stench of a scandal grows with every update. South West joins Anglian, Northumbrian, Thames, Wessex and Yorkshire on the regulator’s list for specific targeting. So more than half the sector is now in a process that can lead to fines of up to 10% of turnover.
The City is starting to take it seriously. Analysts at Jefferies, who recently hosted the chief executive of campaign group Surfers Against Sewage to address fund managers on the grim technicalities of waste dumping, have been warning for a while about “increasing regulatory risks for UK water”. They called Ofwat’s Pennon move “a strongly toned update that signals to us that further scrutiny and regulation is to come”.
About time too. Data from the EA revealed an astonishing 2.7m hours of spills in England in 2021. Only 14% of English rivers are deemed to be of
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