Environment Agency calls for water bosses to face jail over ‘appalling’ pollution
Water bosses should face jail unless they clean up their act, warned the industry’s regulators today.
Environment Agency (EA) chair Emma Howard Boyd slammed the sector’s “appalling” failure to stop raw sewage leaking into rivers, and called for tougher measures to deter rule-breaking.
She said: “Water quality won’t improve until water companies get a grip on their operational performance. We plan to make it too painful for them to continue like this.”
Since 2015 the EA’s prosecutions against water companies have secured fines of over £138m, but this has seemingly had little effect on law-breaking.
The regulator is now pushing for chief executives and board members to go behind bars, if their companies are responsible for the most serious incidents of deliberate pollution.
It also wants courts to impose much higher fines for unauthorised polluting incidents, and for company directors to be struck off so they cannot simply move on in their careers if they commit illegal environmental damage.
| Water and sewerage suppliers | Serious pollution incidents (2021) |
| Anglian Water | 14 |
| Southern Water | 12 |
| Thames Water | 12 |
| South West Water | 8 |
| Yorkshire Water | 5 |
While the amount a company can be fined for environmental crimes is technically unlimited, the fines currently handed down by the courts to entire companies often amount to less than a chief executive’s salary.
This follows the EA’s latest damning report on the performance of England’s nine water and sewerage companies, revealing the lowest environmental ratings across the industry on record – with 62 serious incidents of pollution, the highest since 2013.
The assessment released gives star ratings out of four for companies – with four being the best score and one the worst.
It revealed Southern Water and South West Water were given a one-star rating, while four companies: Anglian Water, Thames Water, Wessex Water and Yorkshire Water, were rated only two stars – meaning they require significant improvement.
Christine McGourty, chief executive of trade body Water UK said: “This year’s results show that, overall, industry must do better. Tackling this is our single biggest priority and every company has a comprehensive plan in place to make that happen.”
The Government has warned its primed to step in unless companies improve their performance.
A Defra spokesperson said: “This report shows that water companies are ignoring their legal responsibilities. Water company chiefs cannot continue to make huge profits whilst polluting our waters. We will not tolerate this behaviour and we will take robust action if we don’t see urgent improvement.”
Separately, regulator Ofwat has opened enforcement cases into six water companies this year, which could all have been dumping untreated sewage into bodies of water without authorisation.
This includes the country’s largest utility provider Thames Water.
When approached for comment following the latest report, a spokesperson for the firm said: “Protecting the environment is fundamental to what we do and we recognise our performance in preventing pollutions is still not good enough.”