Over the past decade, water companies in England and Wales have averaged five serious sewage spills into seas or rivers every day.
The shocking analysis of Environment Agency data by the Observer revealed the catastrophic scale of sewage spills. Between 2013 and 2022, England and Wales water companies recorded 19,484 category 1-3 pollution incidents. For the most recent recorded year of data, this averages one sewage spill every four and a half hours.
Analysis of the Environmental Performance Assessments for the 2013 to 2022 period found Thames Water to be the worst offending company with a total of 3,568 incidents in that time.
Recorded sewage pollution incidents from 2013 to 2022 were as follows:
Although most of the recorded incidents were category three pollution incidents, which are the least severe and mainly have only a localised effect. The actual figures are likely to be an underestimate and reliant on incidents the water companies self-report.
The Environment Agency often don't have the resources available to them to inspect reported incidents, meaning that the actual severity and impact of those pollution incidents often go unverified.
Chief executive of Surfers Against Sewage, Giles Bristow, said of the findings: “This is further evidence of what we’ve all long suspected: water companies are polluting our rivers and seas at a catastrophic scale, each and every day. These companies are brazen in their lack of regard for the law and have been allowed to pollute with barely more than a slap on the wrist.”
The worsening state of the UK’s rivers and seas has rightly attracted increasing public criticism over recent years, and has now become a major campaign issue in the general election.
Steve Reed, Labour’s shadow environment secretary, said that the Conservative government had “just folded their arms and looked the other way while water companies pumped a tidal wave of raw sewage into our rivers, lakes and seas”. Labour stated they would create powers to ban bonus payments and levy criminal charges for 'law-breaking water bosses'.
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ environment spokesperson, commented that the issue was a “national scandal which has gotten worse and worse under the Conservatives’ watch”.
“The Conservatives’ record is one of rising sewage levels and water firms stuffing their pockets with cash. The Liberal Democrats have led the campaign against sewage, with plans for a new water regulator, an end to disgraceful bonuses and profits, and new sewage inspectors.”
A Conservative spokesperson said the government had been clear that “water companies need to be held to account” and “introduced unprecedented levels of transparency with 100% monitoring, and applied the largest ever fines to law-breaking water companies”.
