Thames Water was plunged into crisis this week as Sarah Bentley, its chief executive, suddenly quit and fears emerged over the financial health of the company.
Its management has been accused of mishandling the company, which serves 15 million people, and Thames Water has been criticised for the discharge of raw sewage into rivers, leaks from water pipes and its poor record on mains repairs, customer satisfaction and sewer flooding.
Among its network of 32,000km of water pipes and 100,000km of sewers and treatment works, are a string of sites that serve as key pointers to the company’s strife – from the plan to take Welsh water to London to bolster supplies, to the Netley Mill treatment works, where a failure last summer meant residents had to queue for bottled water in searing heat. Here are three examples of what is going wrong at Thames Water.
Mogden sewage treatment works
Anna King was shocked to see a cascade of foul-smelling water entering her kitchen. The local resident was at home when a brick wall at the Mogden sewage treatment works in west London collapsed, flooding nearby homes and gardens, in 2021. “The river came up incredibly quickly. It engulfed the bottom of our garden and rushed up into the kitchen. It smelled strongly of sewage,” she said.
Mogden, which opened in 1935, is one of the largest works in the UK and treats wastewater from 2.1 million people. Residents along the Duke of Northumberland’s River have long complained of pungent odours and mosquitoes attracted by the site. In 2008, despite a legal challenge, Thames was granted planning permission to extend the site.
But local anger built up in 2020 when about 2 billion litres of raw sewage was released in just 48 hours during heavy rainfall. Bentley defended the figures, claiming that only the addition of another treatment works of the same size could have coped with that amount of rainfall.
According to a report by the environmental audit committee, 3.5bn litres of untreated sewage was released into the Thames by Mogden that year, an increase of 600% on 2016. Ruth Cadbury , Labour MP, has blamed the “ageing infrastructure” for diluted effluence being pumped into the river.
There are also plans, opposed by environmentalists, to use Mogden in a “recycling” scheme in which up to 100m litres of treated sewage will be pumped into the Thames at nearby Teddington each day, replacing 100m litres abstracted from the river to tackle water shortages.
The company has argued that it has repeatedly had to invest in Mogden when the works have become overloaded by heavy rain. It said in March it planned to spend £97m “to increase capacity and reduce the number of storm discharges”.
Beckton desalination plant
In 2010 the then Duke of Edinburgh beamed as he pulled back the royal blue curtain on a plaque to commemorate the opening of the £250m Beckton desalination plant in east London.
The plant, built in response to low reservoir levels in the mid-2000s and with considerable opposition from Ken Livingstone, then London mayor, was to provide a vital backup to supply in drought conditions for up to 400,000 households, taking water from the Thames and providing drinking water for homes and businesses. Opponents urged the company to focus instead on water recycling and reducing leakage.
However, it was argued that the site would provide resilience against increasing climatic uncertainty and, on becoming mayor in 2008, Boris Johnson withdrew his office’s opposition to the project.
More than a decade on, the plant, also known as the Thames Gateway water treatment works, has been labelled a “white elephant” by MPs. Beckton has operated on just three occasions since it was opened. Its capacity has been downgraded, meaning it can only supply two-thirds of its planned 150m litres a day.
Last year, as Britain baked in record temperatures and Thames Water imposed a hosepipe ban, the plant was offline for maintenance, despite assuring regulators it would be available for use in drought.
Bentley said last year that it required “lots of maintenance” and the company wanted it to be ready for this summer. But this month Thames Water admitted that difficulties sourcing the carbon dioxide (CO2) needed to make the water drinkable meant it would be unavailable until at least July as Britain prepared for another scorching summer.
Thames Water said that, after a delivery of CO2 on Thursday, “we have now started the remineralisation process to put the plant back into supply. It is scheduled to be up and running before the end of July. However, continued operation of the plant is dependent on securing an ongoing regular and secure supply of the CO2 that is essential to its operation”. It added: “Currently our water resources are in a good place.”
Stephen Timms, the Labour MP for East Ham, says: “I’m glad it’s up and running again but it was very frustrating last year that it was not available when it was really needed. There are questions over whether this really was a worthwhile investment given the scale of the spending and how many times it has been used.”
Hampton water treatment works
Originally built in the 1850s as three separate water treatment works, the south-west London site provides about 30% of London’s mains water supply. Its old Victorian buildings provide a picturesque backdrop to the site, which is by the Sunnyside and Stain Hill reservoirs
A Thames Water veteran familiar with the site’s operations claims it “leaks like a sieve”, and in 2019 a huge burst pipe at the site prompted panic buying of bottled water as 100,000 properties were left with little or no supplies.
But it is the company’s actions in its surroundings that make this site emblematic of its wider struggles. The firm has been fined 350 times by Richmond council in the past four years, receiving more than £200,000 in penalties for over-running and mismanaged roadworks as it attempted to patch up leaks and mains bursts that have created sink holes on local routes, much to the consternation of politicians.
