Angry at Government latest on water pollution

It appears that very little extra power is likely to be given to the regulators like the replacement of OFWAT and EA.

Until they are given real teeth to deal with this, things will not change.

However let’s see what comes out if the report.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Sir Keir Starmer has been warned that his push for AI firms in the UK will increase water bills.

Sir Jon Cunliffe, a former deputy governor of the Bank of England, named the rise of data centres in Britain as one of the “pressures” on the water system.

His independent report, published on Monday, recommends that Ofwat, the water regulator, should be abolished and replaced by a new body to monitor the industry.

Sir Jon said water bills are set to rise by 30 per cent in the next five years, and that new developments, including data centres used by AI companies, are factors in pushing up prices.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The inescapable fact is that it costs more to produce drinking water and it will cost more to deal with our waste water as we go forward.

“When you look at the pressures on the water system – look at population growth [and] we want to have data centres in this country – they put huge demands on water.

“We have to accept them. But we have to plan for them, we have to decide where the priorities are, and we have to decide how to manage the trade-offs. At the moment, that is just not happening.”

Source The Telegraph today

I’ve been banging on about this ever since The Cloud became popular with the general public.
When I hear people ( several family members) telling me they have 40,000 pics in their cloud I could blow a fuse.
Yes, I agree that it would be lovely for family members to look back over their whole lives.
It’s just not sustainable.
we not me, have a choice: being able to shower, use a washing machine or, have thousands of pics that nobody is likely to look at.

Quote

“We’ve gone from a state asset owned by the population of the U.K. to an asset owned by individuals who have become massively wealthy as a result”

Sir Keir Starmer has been warned that his push for AI firms in the UK will increase water bills.

Sir Jon Cunliffe, a former deputy governor of the Bank of England, named the rise of data centres in Britain as one of the “pressures” on the water system.

His independent report, published on Monday, recommends that Ofwat, the water regulator, should be abolished and replaced by a new body to monitor the industry.

Sir Jon said water bills are set to rise by 30 per cent in the next five years, and that new developments, including data centres used by AI companies, are factors in pushing up prices.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The inescapable fact is that it costs more to produce drinking water and it will cost more to deal with our waste water as we go forward.

“When you look at the pressures on the water system – look at population growth [and] we want to have data centres in this country – they put huge demands on water.

“We have to accept them. But we have to plan for them, we have to decide where the priorities are, and we have to decide how to manage the trade-offs. At the moment, that is just not happening.”

Source The Telegraph today

And the damage to the environment, the loss of species?

It isn’t just about human needs.

This world is shared amongst species.

The truth is that successive governments through OFWAT restricted investment to keep water bills down and have tried to shift the blame on to water companies. The cumulative effect is the increased inadequacy is sewage systems that cannot cope with storm overflows.

If they do achieve halving overflows in a decade they will do well because in many old systems storm water drainage is directly into the sewage system, separating that involves digging up many miles of roadways. Roof water from houses is a minor part, its roads, yards and driveways, recent developments have got separate systems and storm flows dont add to sewage loads.

Although river pollution is undesirable it is not a public health issue, to avoid problems the advice is dont swim in lakes and rivers, the vast majority do just that. Swimming in a river is the equivalent of crossing a road without looking you are advised not to but many get injured doing it.

Grantanow

Should never have been privatised as a monopoly. A serious Tory mistake.

Yes!

Mollygo

I think 5 years is to quick to expect the problems to be anywhere near solution, but I would like to see regular updates on what is planned and what has actually been achieved, rather than wait 5-10 years to find much the same situation, or worse.

I completely agree

Should never have been privatised as a monopoly. A serious Tory mistake.

ferry23

Yesterday -

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp90335j0eeo - for full article

The environment secretary has urged Southern Water's chief executive to turn down a pay rise worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, saying it was not "merited".

Lawrence Gosden was awarded £691,000 as part of a long-term incentive plan this year, on top of his fixed pay of £687,000, according to the company's annual report.

It is understood that he has only received half of this payment this year, taking his total pay to more than £1m.

Poor bloke. How will he manage on half pay? The penalties of doing half a job.

Yesterday -

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp90335j0eeo - for full article

The environment secretary has urged Southern Water's chief executive to turn down a pay rise worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, saying it was not "merited".

Lawrence Gosden was awarded £691,000 as part of a long-term incentive plan this year, on top of his fixed pay of £687,000, according to the company's annual report.

It is understood that he has only received half of this payment this year, taking his total pay to more than £1m.

The report on Ofwat from the Guardian article.

"Report criticises Ofwat's 'desk-based' approach to regulation
Sir Jon Cunliffe’s report contains some specific criticism of how Ofwat has regulated the water industry.

The Commission says Ofwat “relied too heavily on a datadriven, econometric approach”. That means the regulator failed to take sufficient account of company-specific conditions and challenges.

The “over-reliance” on industry-wide benchmarking has led to “sub-optimal outcomes for the sector, for customers, for investors and for the environment”, the report finds.

It adds:

The increasing complexity of the challenges facing water companies – and of the challenges facing the regulator in regulating private monopoly utilities – require a broader, less monolithic and a less desk-based approach to economic regulation and to the oversight of companies’ performance against their licences.
Also, Ofwat’s approach failed to provide sufficient oversight of water companies’ delivery of infrastructure, management of their finances, or the health of the sector’s infrastructure, the Commission concludes.

But, it adds, the blame lies in Westminster too! The report says:

The Commission recognises that, until more recently, Ofwat was encouraged by the government to scale back its oversight of the sector, that it has paid closer attention to these issues in recent years".

It drives me mad the way things have been allowed to go on and little or no practical things that could be helping are made mandatory. Firstly the utilities in my opinion should never have been hived off to private companies for profit. The whole point of it being national was that areas could work together and make the best job possible. Agreed there has been far too little investment but the way these companies have illegally and deliberately released sewage on far more occasions than they should have and kept it all quiet too is scandalous.

So I have lived abroad and travelled a great deal, and every time I have returned to Britian to see good drinking water being used for washing cars and hoses allowed to run in the street wasting water has appalled me and given the situation now is almost criminal. So some easily organised practicalities would be that no house or flats could be built without having water butts to get the water that runs from the gutters. This would provide good water for gardens etc etc Washing cars and filling little paddling pools etc. and also stop some of the flooding by diverting the water to some use. That every household had a shower in it whether over the bath or separate, This would still give the option to people but could save thousands of gallons .

We also had a simple water diverter in the kitchen so that water could be sent into the butts or allow you to fill buckets with cleanish water fine for the garden. Obviously you need some going down the drain. There are many other ways we could all help, but seeing greedy fat cat senior executives being given bonus for doing worse that nothing , does not encourage good practices by everyone. We should all be doing the most we can to look after the environment and be responsible but seeing those who should be doing most getting away with disgraceful behaviour does not set a good example.

There should be an overviewing water group like OFWAT so that qualified people could go round finding leaks in the mains, where they could compel the water boards to sort these leaks out as a matter of urgency and they should be getting their own house in order before trying to make all their customers pay for their own lax and disgraceful behaviour about the millions of gallons wasted by them !!

AGAA4

Ofwat have been woefully inadequate in regulating the water companies and is on the government's list to be dealt with.

Have you seen the news this morning?
www.theguardian.com/business/live/2025/jul/21/independent-water-commission-fundamental-reform-integrated-regulator-ofwat-jon-cunliffe-business-live

Ofwat have been woefully inadequate in regulating the water companies and is on the government's list to be dealt with.

The bottom line is that it should never have been allowed to get to the present state it is in.
The Tories did nothing to nip this in the bud when figures started to show increased pollution levels in our waterways.
Now the situation is critical and will take far more money and time than it would have done had it been tackled at the outset.

How many years have water companies been promising to clean up, and trying to justify huge increases in our water charges? I don't trust any of them to achieve it in five years, or if ever.

I think 5 years is to quick to expect the problems to be anywhere near solution, but I would like to see regular updates on what is planned and what has actually been achieved, rather than wait 5-10 years to find much the same situation, or worse.

Yes, I think you’re being unreasonable to think that it is feasible to eradicate water pollution in five years. Have you forgotten that the government does not own the water companies, and calculated how feasible it would be to take them over, and much it would cost?

It will cost a lot of money but is a matter of priorities. Underinvestment by the water companies is well known. Many profited from this and continue to do so. Money can be found if there is a will. I was anti 16/17 year old voting but maybe they will give leverage to change environmental progress for the better.

Talking to my son yesterday about the issue. He works for the EA.

Our system is Victorian, and has been woefully under-maintained ever since.

This is going to cost the country squillions and will take many years to bring it up to standard.

He also said that With climate change, more energy in the atmosphere and therefore higher and harder and more prolonged rainfall, the situation is going to get worse.

He is hoping to be given much more power by the government to fine, etc but he isn’t holding his breath.

I’d rather they set an achievable target than an unrealistic one to placate people, if they can do more quicker even better.

Is it a very big job? I suspect it is. All the same many things can be achieved if there is the proper will about it. Which would then transfer money from somewhere else to deal with the issue.