England’s serious water pollution incidents at 10-year high

According to data received by campaigners, the number of so -called serious pollution incidents recorded by water companies in England is at a height of ten years.

Surfers against the sewage said that the data from the environment agency showed that the number of incidents was doubled from its target.

Such spread has the ability to damage wildlife and disease for people using the country’s rivers and seas.

The industry bodies representing Water UK, UK water and sewage companies said that companies plan to invest £ 12BN to reduce spreads by the end of the decade.

Along with reporting the total number of annual sewage spreads, the environmental regulator environmental agency also records the number of most serious pollution events, which is likely to cause serious damage to wildlife and people.

Eight years ago, EA commented that the water sector was not enough to reduce serious pollution incidence. Said this This was “crisis for local communities and staining rivers and beaches.”

The industry was set to reduce these events by 2025 to 40% by the 2016 level.

The latest publicly available data is until the end of 2023. But after independence of information request, surfers against sewage received data until the beginning of 2025.

This showed that 2,487 pollution incidents were recorded last year – 31% increase at 2016 level, and almost the original EA target was doubled.

“The water industry fails, fails and fails again,” said Gills Bristo, CEO of surfers against sewage.

He asked for the improvement of the system so that it “prioritize public health and value for customer money and distribute healthy beaches, rivers and lakes.”

Water UK responded to the findings from nine companies responsible for dealing with sewage in England.

“We have clarified that the water system is not working and the independent Water Commission supports how the industry is regulated, given every aspect of it.

“However, no sewage spill is ever acceptable and the water companies are investing £ 12 billion to spend about half from Storm overflow by 2030,” Water UK said.

Most of the money for that investment is expected to come from an increase in water bills, which began to be effective this month.

The regulatory regulators of the industry are allowing water companies to increase the bill at an average of £ 31 each year in the next five years – but those growth do not include inflation, which means that the actual bill is likely to be higher.

Water Commission is an independent reviewEstablished by the government, to see various ways to regulate the industry after public anger grows on the performance of the water company.

Chairman Sir John Kanalif, former Deputy Governor of Bank of England, Inviting the public submission By next week.