Latest news with #watercompanies
The Independent
a day ago
- Business
- The Independent
Pollution fines of more than £100m will go to environmental projects, Defra says
Pollution fines of more than £100 million will go to environmental projects, the Government has confirmed after concerns it would backtrack on a pledge first made by the Tories. The Environment Department (Defra) said more than £100 million in fines and penalties levied on water firms for breaches such as illegal sewage spills since October 2023 – as well as future fines – will be reinvested in projects to clean up England's waters. These could include local programmes to address pollution and improve water quality. The announcement comes as the Government attempts to grapple with the problems engulfing the water sector in the face of high public anger over the degraded and polluted state of rivers, lakes and coasts, rising bills, bosses' bonuses and shareholder payouts. The promise to reinvest money from fines into work to improve the environment was first made by the Conservative government in 2022, with local groups, farmers, communities and landowners invited last year to bid for an £11 million ringfenced pot of penalties levied since April 2022. There were reports that, after the election, the Treasury was seeking to divert the money elsewhere, but Defra has confirmed a huge pot of cash for environmental projects as part of its efforts to sort out the water sector's pollution problems. The Government has also pointed to the 'record' 81 criminal investigations that have been launched into water companies since it came to power and prison time for bosses who cover up illegal sewage spills and an independent review launched into the sector. And troubled utility Thames Water was handed a record fine of £123 million in May, including £104.5 million for breaking rules over sewage treatment which contributes to the pot that will be spent on environmental projects. Environment Secretary Steve Reed said: 'We inherited a broken water system with record levels of sewage being pumped into waters. 'But the era of profiting from failure is over,' he said. 'This Government will invest money collected through fines into local projects to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas for good.' Environmental charity River Action's chief executive James Wallace said: 'Ringfencing water company fines for river restoration is a welcome move – but it's hardly new. 'The previous government pledged this in 2022, only for the new Chancellor to backtrack, prioritising growth over nature. 'If this Government is serious about making polluters pay, it must give the Department for Environment all the funding and powers it needs to enforce the law.' He called for Thames Water to be put into a Special Administration Regime, and raised concerns whether, with a 3% cut in Defra's core budget in last week's spending review, the Environment Agency would be in a position to keep tabs on pollution and enforce the law. 'Regulators need boots on the ground, legal resources and access to courts, backed by consistent funding and most importantly, political will,' he urged. The Government has also announced new 'sustainable drainage systems' standards to give developers clearer guidance on creating systems to collect and filter rainwater that mimic nature, like green roofs, permeable surfaces and areas to allow water to soak away without causing flooding. These measures can help relieve pressure on the sewage system and prevent pollution overflowing into waterways, officials said. Water minister Emma Hardy said: 'The Government will introduce new standards to tackle water pollution, protect communities from flooding and make our new towns beautiful.'
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Pollution fines of more than £100m will go to environmental projects, Defra says
Pollution fines of more than £100 million will go to environmental projects, the Government has confirmed after concerns it would backtrack on a pledge first made by the Tories. The Environment Department (Defra) said more than £100 million in fines and penalties levied on water firms for breaches such as illegal sewage spills since October 2023 – as well as future fines – will be reinvested in projects to clean up England's waters. These could include local programmes to address pollution and improve water quality. The announcement comes as the Government attempts to grapple with the problems engulfing the water sector in the face of high public anger over the degraded and polluted state of rivers, lakes and coasts, rising bills, bosses' bonuses and shareholder payouts. The promise to reinvest money from fines into work to improve the environment was first made by the Conservative government in 2022, with local groups, farmers, communities and landowners invited last year to bid for an £11 million ringfenced pot of penalties levied since April 2022. There were reports that, after the election, the Treasury was seeking to divert the money elsewhere, but Defra has confirmed a huge pot of cash for environmental projects as part of its efforts to sort out the water sector's pollution problems. The Government has also pointed to the 'record' 81 criminal investigations that have been launched into water companies since it came to power and prison time for bosses who cover up illegal sewage spills and an independent review launched into the sector. And troubled utility Thames Water was handed a record fine of £123 million in May, including £104.5 million for breaking rules over sewage treatment which contributes to the pot that will be spent on environmental projects. Environment Secretary Steve Reed said: 'We inherited a broken water system with record levels of sewage being pumped into waters. 'But the era of profiting from failure is over,' he said. 'This Government will invest money collected through fines into local projects to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas for good.' Environmental charity River Action's chief executive James Wallace said: 'Ringfencing water company fines for river restoration is a welcome move – but it's hardly new. 'The previous government pledged this in 2022, only for the new Chancellor to backtrack, prioritising growth over nature. 'If this Government is serious about making polluters pay, it must give the Department for Environment all the funding and powers it needs to enforce the law.' He called for Thames Water to be put into a Special Administration Regime, and raised concerns whether, with a 3% cut in Defra's core budget in last week's spending review, the Environment Agency would be in a position to keep tabs on pollution and enforce the law. 'Regulators need boots on the ground, legal resources and access to courts, backed by consistent funding and most importantly, political will,' he urged. The Government has also announced new 'sustainable drainage systems' standards to give developers clearer guidance on creating systems to collect and filter rainwater that mimic nature, like green roofs, permeable surfaces and areas to allow water to soak away without causing flooding. These measures can help relieve pressure on the sewage system and prevent pollution overflowing into waterways, officials said. Water minister Emma Hardy said: 'The Government will introduce new standards to tackle water pollution, protect communities from flooding and make our new towns beautiful.'
BBC News
3 days ago
- Climate
- BBC News
England needs more hosepipe bans and smart water meters
England faces huge future water shortages and needs a "continued and sustained effort" to reduce demand, including more hosepipe bans and 'smart' water meters, warns the Environment watchdog says that without dramatic action, England, which uses 14 billion litres of water a day, will have a daily shortage of more than six billion litres by says more homes will need meters reporting how much water is used in real time and in future prices may need to rise when supplies are tight. The warning came with droughts already declared in Yorkshire and the north-west of England this year following what the Met Office says is the warmest and driest Spring in more than half a century. The EA made the warning in its five yearly National Framework for Water Resources report. It said 5 billion litres would be needed to supply the public and a further 1 billion for agriculture and energy EA said customers in England need to cut their water use by 2.5 billion litres a day by 2055 – down from an average of around 140 litres per person per day to 110 litres per warns future economic growth will be likely be compromised as water becomes scarcer and has already highlighted how water shortages in parts of Sussex, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Norfolk have limited housing and business Lovell, the chair of the EA, told the BBC he would like to see water companies making more use of restrictions like hosepipe bans when there are droughts to "bring home to people that the amount of water they use is making a difference." Growing pressure on supply The EA highlights England's growing population as a key driver of the deficit. Water companies expect it to increase by 8 million people by the same time, climate change is altering weather patterns, creating new challenges for water EA says England – like the rest of the UK – is already experiencing warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers. It expects that trend to become more pronounced and warns of more intense rainfall events creating the potential for a greater incidence of both drought and key factor is the need to reduce how much water is taken – or "abstracted" – by water companies and other users from England's rivers, the report risks wrecking some rivers, particularly the fragile ecosystems of the country's chalk streams, said Mr Lovell. "It ultimately could see the demise of those rivers to an extent that they will never come back in the same form," he told the BBC. Adding to the pressures on supply is the fact that water companies plan to dramatically increase their drought resilience. By 2040 they aim to cope with the kind of drought you would expect once in every 500 Hannah Cloke, a hydrologist at Reading University, believes we need to change our attitude towards water. "We really don't value water," she says. "We need to think about it as a really, really precious resource."Everybody should be looking after water and conserving it and thinking about what they do when they turn on the tap and when they choose not to." A joint effort Everyone involved in the water industry, including domestic customers, will need to play a role in meeting the deficit, the EA says it is "vital" that water companies deliver on their promise to cut the amount of water that leaks from their pipes by half by 2050 compared to 2017-18 levels. That should save around 900m litres a infrastructure will play a role too. Last year water companies were given the go-ahead by Ofwat, the body that oversees the water industry, to invest billions of pounds in ten new reservoirs and two desalination plants as well as pipelines and other equipment to enable more water to be transferred between aim is to create a "water grid" in the southern half of England, said Bob Taylor, the CEO of Portsmouth Water. "We're also looking at using existing rivers, canals and other means to transfer water from areas where it is plentiful in the UK to the south east and east of the country where it is less plentiful," Taylor explained. These new investments should ultimately deliver an additional 1.7 billion litres a day, the EA report calculates. But the first reservoir won't be completed until the end of this decade and the programme isn't due to be finished until the early 2040s.A further 2.5 billion litres a day will have to found by reducing customer demand, including from domestic customers, the EA says. And, because of the delays delivering the new infrastructure, initially up to 80% of the deficit will need to be met by customers using less well as water companies switching customers to the kind of smart meters and variable pricing already seen in the electricity industry, the EA is calling for the government to tighten building regulations on water use of new homes and consider minimum standards for water efficiency of EA report highlights the rapid growth in the number of data centres in England as an area of growing industrial demand for Squire, head of sustainability at Ark Data Centres, says water companies need to be much clearer with industrial customers about how much water they have available and how resilient the supply is."We need to know what the constraints are so we can design the system," said Squire. "We need energy, we need fibre optic connections, but we can build data centres that don't use water. They just cost more to run." Sign up for our Future Earth newsletter to keep up with the latest climate and environment stories with the BBC's Justin Rowlatt. Outside the UK? Sign up to our international newsletter here.
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
UK faces daily water shortage of five billion litres a day by 2055 unless urgent action is taken as officials warn it will 'threaten way of life'
England will face public water shortages of five billion litres a day by 2055 unless urgent action is taken, officials have warned. The shortfall – equivalent to a third of the country's daily use – is being blamed on climate change, population growth and more demand from businesses. Without urgent action to cut leaks, curb use and build new reservoirs, there is a likelihood of environmental damage, restricted economic growth, interruptions to supplies and a lack of resilience in areas such as energy and food production, the Environment Agency said. The Environment Agency also warned that the wider economy faces a further deficit of one billion litres a day, with growing demand from the energy sector, food production and businesses such as water-intensive data centres. The highly populated south east region of England faces the biggest shortfall, with an estimated extra two billion litres of water a day needed between 2030 and 2055. Sixty per cent of fixing the shortage needs to come from water companies managing demand and halving the amount of water lost to leaks, the EA warned. The rest would come from new reservoirs and desalination plants – which turn seawater into drinking water – and moving water from wetter parts of the country to drier areas. But with those kind of projects taking years to come online, initially some 80 per cent of water shortfalls need to be met by reducing demand and tackling leaks, the agency said. The warning comes in the Environment Agency's national framework for water resources, published every five years and setting out the actions needed by utilities, regulators and businesses and the public to manage under-pressure resources. The EA warns that the population of England is set to increase by eight million by 2055, increasing demand for water for everything from washing and appliances to leisure activities on golf courses and sports pitches. Climate change is likely to reduce the amount of available water, with hotter, drier summers limiting resources and increasing demand from households, while at the same time the amount taken from rivers and groundwater will need to be reduced to protect wildlife and the environment. The warning comes in the wake of England's hottest spring on record, and the country's driest for more than 100 years, with the North West and Yorkshire in drought, some reservoirs at extremely low levels, farmers struggling to grow crops and households facing the prospect of hosepipe bans. The Environment Agency warned it was 'vital' water companies delivered on their commitments to reduce leakage by 17 per cent in the next five years and by 50 per cent by 2050. The EA wants to see a rollout of smart meters, including upgrading existing standard meters, which the agency said would help households reduce their water use, enable companies to target efforts to curb demand and spot leaks - while also taking steps to protect vulnerable customers. And the agency said it would continue to work with the Government on a mandatory efficiency labelling scheme for appliances such as dishwashers, toilets and showers. The EA also said there were small steps the public can take, such as shortening showers, turning off taps when brushing teeth, using full loads for dishwashers and washing machines, collecting water for garden use and deleting old emails to reduce pressure on data centre servers. Emerging industries such as data centres and hydrogen production, which use large amounts of water for cooling systems, need to look at more options for using recycled water rather than public water supplies to meet their needs, the EA said. The report estimates that the water needs for carbon capture and storage technology, used to store greenhouse gas emissions from power stations or industry deep underground, and hydrogen production alone will amount to 767 million litres a day by 2050. Navigation of waterways, leisure facilities and the chemicals industry all put demands on water resources, while there is the potential for 'new large demand' as new data centres are built, the report said. Environment Agency chairman Alan Lovell said: 'The nation's water resources are under huge and steadily increasing pressure. 'This deficit threatens not only the water from your tap but also economic growth and food production. 'Taking water unsustainably from the environment will have a disastrous impact on our rivers and wildlife. 'We need to tackle these challenges head on and strengthen work on co-ordinated action to preserve this precious resource and our current way of life.' The Government says it has secured £104 billion in private sector spending in water company infrastructure over the next five years, including £8 billion committed to boost water supply and manage demand, and is stepping in to speed up the construction of a series of major reservoirs. But consumers have reacted angrily to rising bills in the face of polluted rivers, lakes and seas, shareholder payouts and executive bonuses.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Water sector needs ‘root-and-branch' reform, MPs say
The water sector is in need of 'root-and-branch reform', a committee of MPs has said as it called for 'much more regulated management' of bonuses for senior bosses. The cross-party Environment, Food and Rural Affairs committee has said that the industry is 'failing', but that water companies are 'deaf to the crisis' that it is facing. In their report, Priorities For Water Sector Reform released on Monday, the MPs argue that the Government 'should feel able to use its temporary nationalisation powers' when needed. They also said the system should 'ensure that more money gained from investors and through customer bills is directed towards investment in water infrastructure and service delivery' and less towards debt repayment or financial rewards for executives. The system of fines and rewards should also focus on a reduction in pollution incidents, responsible ownership and the need for the sector to have long-term resilience, the MPs said. 'Despite some initial success after privatisation in 1989, root-and-branch reform of the water sector is now needed to improve the sector's culture,' the committee said. As part of their investigation, the MPs found that 'public disquiet has increasingly turned to outrage' at the way water companies and their bosses are benefiting from the sector. 'Over hearings with 10 of the largest water companies and Ofwat, we regularly encountered a culture that is deaf to the crisis thesector is facing,' they said. #WaterCompany senior executives will be banned from receiving a bonus if they breach standards relating to consumer and environmental matters, criminal liability and financial resilience, under new powers coming into force today. Find out more: — Ofwat (@Ofwat) June 6, 2025 Committee chairman Alistair Carmichael, a Liberal Democrat MP, said the sector 'must not shy away from bold proposals' and that it has a 'serious culture problem'. He said: 'Water companies' complex and sometimes impenetrable financial structures, with their myriad subsidiaries, holding companies and parent organisations, seem to suggest that their purpose is less to provide a good service to their customers and more to allow them to juggle their finances and their increasingly unsustainable levels of debt. 'Meanwhile, an ineffective regulatory system has failed to protect customers, the environment and the financial stability of the sector. 'It has failed to ensure that companies invest in essential infrastructure and it has not encouraged long-term thinking. 'This has got to stop now. Trust and accountability in the water sector are very low. 'It is not acceptable that it has fallen to commendable citizen scientists to expose issues with local water resources. 'Environmental protection and the delivery of reliable and safe water must be the first priorities of water companies and regulators.' A Defra spokesperson said: 'Our rivers, lakes and seas are polluted, and our water system is broken. 'As part of the plan for change, new legislation has banned unfair multimillion-pound bonuses for bosses at six water companies and launched a record 81 criminal investigations. 'This Government has also secured the largest investment into the water sector in history, with £104 bn in private sector investment to clean up rivers, lakes and seas and cut sewage by nearly half by 2030.' A Water UK spokesperson said: 'Everyone agrees that the water system is not working, and we have been calling for fundamental reforms which allow investment to get quickly to where it needs to go. 'In the meantime, companies are focused on investing a record £104 billion over the next five years to secure our water supplies, end sewage entering our rivers and seas and support economic growth.'
