Troubled waters: How the UK’s water corporations turned a nationwide shame | EUROtoday

Dependable water methods are one of many core foundations upon which societies are constructed.

From immense Roman aqueducts to grand Victorian sewers, plumbing has underpinned public well being, enabled cities to develop, and pushed as soon as‑lethal ailments like cholera and typhoid to the margins.

Yet within the UK at this time, this basis is cracking – with widespread outages, sewage‑choked rivers, and water corporations struggling to ship the very fundamentals they had been created to ensure.

Nearly 2,000 years after Pliny the Elder wrote of the Roman plumbing system that “there has never been anything more remarkable in the whole world,” folks in Britain could be hard-pressed to agree.

In current weeks, tens of hundreds of individuals residing within the southeast of England have seen first hand what the breakdown of water provision seems like.

“We couldn’t wash or shower, we couldn’t flush the toilet for two days. It was full of excrement. I had to plunge it to clean it all up. It was disgusting really,” Tunbridge Wells resident David Ayre instructed The Independentwhereas queuing for bottled water on the city’s rugby membership.

This week alone, South East Water outages meant 30,000 properties had been with out water in components of Kent and East Sussex.

This adopted one other main halt to the water provides within the space, which started in November and lasted into December, affecting round 24,000 properties.

Local MP Mike Martin, a Liberal Democrat, instructed The Independent the size of the issue meant South East Water had “lost all credibility”.

“The damage is immense and all widespread,” he mentioned. “We’re talking tens of millions of pounds lost for local businesses. Children missing weeks of education. Parents having to fork out huge sums of money for last-minute childcare. The old and vulnerable being put in harm’s way. This has been the most damaging crisis to hit Tunbridge Wells since Covid.”

He added: “It doesn’t help that private equity has totally stripped South East Water of cash and has saddled them with debt.”

Meanwhile, South East Water’s neighbour, Southern Water, has displayed a equally torrid file, with a major outage in Hastings on 23 December lasting till Christmas Day. This adopted a significant outage in May 2024, through which round 32,500 properties misplaced their water provide for as much as 5 days.

The firm has lately been concerned in a catastrophic spill of hundreds of thousands of plastic bio-beads utilized in a water therapy facility, which at the moment are washing up alongside the South Coast, with severe considerations raised over environmental implications. Case after case of sewage air pollution and failure to correctly monitor sewage overflows means waterways and the ocean are additionally routinely pumped with human waste.

Labour MP for Hastings, Helena Dollimore, mentioned: “Hastings, Rye and the villages have had failure after failure from Southern Water. We’ve had major water outages, we’ve had flooding in our town centre. We’ve had sewage in the sea, and millions of plastic beads washing up on our coastline. These are things which people are completely frustrated with.

“What has become evident to us is that our town’s infrastructure and the water pipes have just been neglected for decades, not properly maintained and we’re now seeing the consequences of that.”

She added: “Money that was meant to be spent on maintaining and repairing pipes was instead siphoned off into shareholder dividends and payouts and bonuses for many decades.”

Around the nation, severe sewage spills had been up a large 60 per cent in 2025.

One of the worst culprits was one other firm within the southeast, Thames Water, which accounted for 33 of 75 severe incidents recorded by the Environment Agency in 2024 – greater than a 3rd of the full.

Facing collapse as a consequence of big money owed, in addition to incapability to repair leaks and cease sewage spills, the embattled water firm has obtained permission from UK water regulator Ofwat to boost payments by 35 per cent over 5 years – outraging prospects, not least as a result of, since privatisation in 1989, the corporate has paid out an eye-watering £10bn to shareholders.

This week, a Survation ballot of Thames Water prospects discovered the bulk now need the water firm to be nationalised.

One factor in widespread additionally unites these water corporations: they’re all now searching for to boost payments

In October final 12 months, Southern Water, which had already secured a 53 per cent common invoice hike over the subsequent 5 years, nonetheless sought an extra 15 per cent enhance – however was permitted to boost payments by an extra 3 per cent.

At the time, the Competition and Markets Authority mentioned the additional cash would fund extra resilient provide, scale back air pollution, and replicate elevated financing prices.

Next week, the UK authorities will publish a long-awaited plan on the way it intends to wash up the UK’s waterways, reduce air pollution and enhance infrastructure.

But campaigners are involved the Labour authorities received’t go far sufficient, and will successfully serve to prop up “a broken system”.

Giles Bristow, chief govt of marketing campaign group Surfers Against Sewage, instructed The Independent that the laws can be a “critical milestone”, which should put us on the trail to sewage-free waters.

“We will not hesitate to call out half-baked measures from Keir Starmer and his government,” he mentioned. “Any plan is doomed to fail if it props up a broken system that puts profit before people and the environment.”

“Tinkering around the edges is not enough. The government must be bold, take on the polluters, and make clear that public health and deliver the systemic change the public demands, and deserves.”

Tunbridge Wells’ Mr Martin mentioned a shake-up of the entire business was the one approach to get the UK out of the polluted gap it has dug itself.

He mentioned: “The Lib Dems are campaigning for the creation of a public benefit model to restructure the water industry. Water companies would operate as not-for-profits and all mutual company profits would be reinvested back into the water network for public benefit. Debt would be put back onto private companies to protect taxpayers and customers from financial mismanagement.”

The UK regulator, Ofwat, this week opened an investigation into South East Water within the wake of the repeated water provide failures throughout Kent and Sussex.

It will examine whether or not the water firm has offered excessive sufficient requirements of customer support and help to satisfy the situations of its licence.

Following the announcement, South East Water mentioned it could “always fully co-operate with any investigation by regulators and provide any information required”.

An Ofwat Spokesperson Told The Independent: “We are the economic regulator so we are constantly ensuring that companies are meeting the obligations which they have to us, and also other regulators for the sector. On wastewater specifically, we resolved six wastewater investigations in 2025, with more than £250m in fines and redress secured.”

But amid the formal requires change, public frustration with water firm bosses and particularly their excessive ranges of pay, has reached new heights.

Last week, The Times reported that Southern Water has assigned bodyguards to journey with chief govt Lawrence Gosden, following a current incident the place he was positioned beneath a citizen’s arrest by offended activists.

The identical group has additionally focused different water firm bosses, together with Chris Weston of Thames Water and Mark Thurston of Anglian Water.

South East Water chief govt David Hinton is beneath mounting stress to stop.

As nicely as annoyed residents offended that he didn’t make any public look for 20 days after December 2025’s outage, the native MP, and chief of Kent County Council have referred to as for his resignation, whereas MPs have recalled him to parliament following an atmosphere committee listening to throughout which, his account amounted to “misleading parliament and holding the House of Commons in contempt”, MPs mentioned.

A Defra spokesperson mentioned: “It is entirely unacceptable that several areas in the South East have been experiencing water supply issues and water bosses must be held accountable.

“However, nationalisation is not the answer. It would cost taxpayers £100bn, diverting money from hospitals and schools, while years of unpicking the current ownership model would see investment dry up and sewage pollution worsen.

“Our Water White Paper will set out the long-term systemic reforms needed to clean up our water for good, including prioritising investment in our water infrastructure to improve resilience.”

A Thames Water spokesperson instructed The Independent: “We remain focused on working with London and Valley Water consortium and all stakeholders on a holistic market-led solution that is deliverable, will return Thames Water to an investment grade credit rating, and benefits customers, the environment, taxpayers and the UK economy.”

The Independent has contacted Southern Water and South East Water for remark.