Thames Water performance getting worse after damning report

The Environment Agency has released its annual report on the environmental performance of England’s nine water and sewerage companies.

Measured against the Environment Agency’s four-star rating, Thames Water has attained two stars which shows no improvement from the previous year.

This rating considers performance on environmental commitments such as pollution incidents.

Thames Water had a declined performance due to the number of serious pollution incidents rising from 12 in 2021 to 17 in 2022.

Only six of Thames Water’s 17 serious pollution incidents were self-reported. (Image: PA)

The water company were responsible for 50 per cent of the most serious incidents across the whole water company sector.

Alongside this, their total number of pollution incidents has increased from 271 in 2021 to 331 in 2022.

Only six of Thames Water’s 17 serious pollution incidents were self-reported to the Environment Agency, which is the worst performance in the sector.

Emma Hill, Environment Agency Thames Area Director said: “We are very disappointed with Thames Water’s environmental performance as the water company requires significant improvement in a number of areas. 

“Seventeen serious pollution incidents, three of which accounted for half of all the most serious incidents across the whole water sector, is completely unacceptable.

“We are also very concerned about their late delivery of environmental improvement works which the company is required to complete in line with regulatory requirements.

Over 1,000 fish died as a result of the pollution spills into the Gatwick rivers. (Image: PA)

“We expect Thames Water to increase the scale and pace of action to reduce the number of pollution incidents and we will continue to take enforcement action against Thames Water if this is not the case.”

The issues have continued for Thames Water as they were fined £3.33m this month after millions of litres of raw sewage flooded two rivers near Gatwick.

A Thames Water spokesperson said: “Protecting the environment is fundamental to what we do and we recognise our performance in preventing pollutions is still not good enough.

“We’re committed to turning this around and our shareholders have approved additional funding into the business so we can improve outcomes for customers, leakage and river health.

“Alongside implementing our pollution reduction plan to deliver these changes, we have plans to upgrade over 250 of our sewage treatment works and are striving every day to reduce the discharge of untreated sewage into our rivers.

“This is a key part of our River Health Action Plan to radically improve our position in order to protect and improve the environment, as we strive to eliminate all incidents in the future.”