Environmental group River Action is bringing a legal challenge to the Water Services Regulation Authority otherwise known as Ofwat. They’re accusing Ofwat of:
acting unlawfully by using recent, significant bill hikes to cover past infrastructure failures—forcing customers, rather than investors, to foot the bill for decades of neglect.
This particular legal case relates to Lake Windermere in particular, but could have implications for water services around the country.
Pumping sewage – and Ofwat has enabled it
Local campaign groups Save Windermere and Windrush Against Sewage Pollution investigated the regulation of water services in Lake Windermere. They discovered that there had been thousands of hours of raw sewage being pumped into the lake.
Save Windermere explain that when sewage is pumped into bodies of water, this adds phosphorus to the water. This, in turn, creates algal blooms which occur when toxin-producing algae grows rapidly in water. This algae starves the lake of dissolved oxygen. This can be catastrophic for any life forms in the water.
The group also showed just how much sewage United Utilities have been pumping into Lake Windermere. In 2020, they found that 7,236 hours of untreated sewage was pumped into the water. For 2021 and 2022, the number of hours of sewage pumped was just below 6,000. And, in 2023 8,787 hours of untreated sewage was pumped into Windermere.
Save Windermere conclude that:
Over 10 years ago the decision was made not to invest in the removal of United Utilities discharges on the basis of cost. We must stop prioritising cost savings over the protection of the environment.
River Action shared this conclusion, saying in a statement:
River Action has commenced legal action claiming Ofwat has allowed the company to divert funds meant for future projects to deal with past failures—rather than investing in vital improvements to wastewater treatment and pumping stations around the lake.
Effectively, this means that Ofwat has allowed money from customers that should be for infrastructure go to fixing problems that should never have happened, like pumping sewage into a river.
Customers footing the bill
River Action believe that many water companies are doing the same thing. River Action’s Emma Dearnaley said:
We believe Ofwat has acted unlawfully by approving these funds without ensuring they are spent on genuine improvements to essential infrastructure. Instead, this so-called ‘enhanced funding’ is being allowed to be used to cover up years of failure.
Dearnaley explained why River Action are pushing back against Ofwat:
Effectively, Ofwat has signed off on a broken system where customers are being charged again for services they have already funded—while water companies continue to mark their own homework and pollute for profit.
This scandal must be addressed. The cost of fixing the UK’s crumbling water infrastructure should fall on the companies and their investors—not on the British public.
River Action’s statement concluded:
River Action is calling for immediate regulatory action to ensure water companies stop passing the cost of failure onto customers—and start taking responsibility for the environmental damage they have caused.
Denials from Ofwat
In response to the claims, Ofwat said:
We reject River Action’s claims. The PR24 process methodically scrutinised business plans to ensure that customers were getting fair value and investment was justified.
We agree that customers should not pay twice for companies to regain compliance with environmental permits, and have included appropriate safeguards in our PR24 determinations to ensure this, which we will monitor closely, taking action if required. We will respond to their letter in due course.
The “PR24” they refer to is the Price Review of 2024. However, Ofwat, alongside the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), and the Environment Agency (EA) were warned at the end of 2024 that they could be taken to court for failing to regulate sewage dumping. The very idea that Ofwat can claim their safeguards are enough when brazen water companies keep pumping sewage into rivers and upping bonuses for bosses is disconcerting to say the least.
Now, it appears that environmental groups like River Action, Save Windermere, and Windrush Against Sewage Pollution have had enough of waiting for regulators to do their jobs.
Featured image via the Canary
