The first river to be given bathing water status in England is in limbo waiting for the Environment Agency (EA) to approve crucial nature-based solutions that are part of £43m in improvements to cut sewage pollution.
In the West Yorkshire town of Ilkley, campaigners were the first to use the EU-derived bathing water regulations to drive a cleanup of their river. But since part of the River Wharfe was granted bathing water status in 2020, water quality has persistently been recorded as poor, most recently in the latest classifications last month. If it remains poor next year, when the status is up for renewal, it could lose its bathing water designation.
The race to clean up the river comes as water companies await Thursday’s decision from the regulator, Ofwat, on how much they can raise customer bills to the end of the decade. This will pay for investment of between £88bn and £100bn to tackle sewage pollution, replace creaking infrastructure and fix leaks.
Customers face huge bill rises in some areas, with Southern Water seeking rises of 84% and Thames Water 53%. Water companies are simultaneously seeking to increase dividend payments to attract investment that will be repaid by customers via their bills.
Yorkshire Water wants to be allowed to increase annual average bills to £569 by 2030.
In Ilkley, the £43m of improvements to the treatment plant, including expanding storage capacity and the creation of nature-based filtering systems to clean up the river, have been agreed by Yorkshire Water and Ofwat.
But the EA has yet to grant a permit for a 4,000 sq meter aerated rush bed that will provide a natural solution for the secondary treatment of sewage storm overflows before they enter the river.
Becky Malby of the campaign group Ilkley Clean River said: “These are known solutions. The Environment Agency should know how to permit and support nature-based solutions as part of the treatment of all our sewage. It is better for the environment and it is cheaper.
“We are now waiting for the EA to work out how to permit a nature-based solution, when they have been around for years.”
The Wharfe reflects the poor water quality of rivers across England, where no river meets good quality testing thresholds owing to excessive levels of biological and chemical pollution.
Malby said the inability of the water companies and regulators to recognise the pollution sources, and to put plans in place quickly despite years of public outrage, was disgraceful.
On Thursday Ofwat will publish its decision on whether it will allow customer bill rises of, on average, 40%, as well as allowing firms to increase dividend payments amid criticism that customers are again funding companies that are failing.
Over the past three decades since privatisation, English water companies have paid out £53.1bn in dividends – £83bn in today’s prices – and built debts of £60.3bn.
Thames Water, the biggest of the privatised firms, is struggling with debts of £15bn and attempting to shore up its finances.
Last week the company revealed sewage pollution had soared by 40% in the six months to 30 September as its debts continued to rise.
In October, water companies were given penalties of £157.6m after they missed pollution and leak targets. Thames Water accounted for more than a third of the penalties, at £56.8m. All water companies are under investigation by Ofwat and the EA for illegally dumping sewage.
Malby said: “But despite all this we are likely to hear this week that bills will go up by an average of 40%; ranging from 25% Anglian to 84% at Southern Water.
“Not only have we already paid, but these bill rises are not matched by a clear deadline for cleaning up our rivers, lakes and seas from sewage pollution.”
Malby and other campaigners, including Save Windermere, Windrush against Sewage Pollution and SOS Whitstable, have been critical in exposing the routine use of raw sewage discharges into rivers by water companies. They want a radical overhaul of the way the industry is managed, calling for Thames Water and other failing companies to be placed into special administration to allow the government to introduce much-needed reforms.
A Yorkshire Water spokesperson said: “We are investing significantly in the River Wharfe at Ilkley – the first inland bathing water in the region – including improvements to storm overflows, a new £15m sewer, additional treatment at upstream wastewater treatment works and £60m early investment at the existing wastewater treatment works to upgrade it, including a nature-based solution, which is subject to Environment Agency approval.”
An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “We take our responsibility to protect the environment very seriously. We have approved a trial for the use of Nature Based Solutions in Yorkshire, including a reed bed for the treatment of storm overflows, which is subject to certain conditions, monitoring and reporting. It is for Yorkshire Water to decide whether the trial will go ahead and following this the Environment Agency would then work with the company on permitting.”
