More than £1.6bn is to be invested by water companies in England in the next two years, the regulator, Ofwat, has announced, in a victory for campaigners pushing to clean up rivers.
The investment by water companies has been brought forward to speed up projects to tackle pollution and drought.
Residents in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, fought for their river to be the first in the UK to be given bathing water status, and Yorkshire Water will now invest £67m to cut sewage leaks from wastewater treatment plants. Ilkley Clean River Group said the plans were ambitious in their timescale, aiming for improvements to be taking shape in 2026.
“This is what our years of citizen science, water testing, bathing status and holding agencies to account has got us. We are really pleased,” said Becky Malby of the Ilkley Clean River Group. “Our river is a precious resource for local people, visitors and wildlife. The collective effort of the Environment Agency, Ofwat, Yorkshire Water and local people has produced a solution that radically reduces sewage discharges and improves the quality of the water in our river now and for the future.”
The public outcry over the discharge of raw sewage into rivers has become a major political issue, with Keir Starmer accusing the government of “turning Britain’s waterways into an open sewer” last week. The latest data from the Environment Agency (EA) showed on Friday that discharges of raw sewage from storm overflows into English rivers and coastal waters happened 825 times a day last year.
United Utilities, which covers the north-west of England, was responsible for 69,000 spills last year, including a site in Cumbria that discharged sewage more than 300 times.
On Tuesday the government will announce a “plan for water” that it claims will set out how to achieve cleaner and more plentiful water. The scale of problems ranges from pollution of every English river from sewage and agricuture, to the reality of water shortages as the climate crisis leads to droughts across the UK. The EA has recently heavily criticised plans by Thames Water to find new water sources in Wales and from the River Thames.
The Ilkley improvement is one of several projects designed to cut raw sewage overflows from the 15,000 storm overflows that pour diluted waste into English rivers. They are supposed to be used in exceptional circumstances but are being used routinely by water companies. In 2022, EA figures show, raw sewage was discharged into rivers for more than 1.75m hours.
Ofwat said the investment would ensure improvements were made more quickly “to address the unacceptable levels of pollution in waterways”.
Projects to cut sewage discharges from storm overflows include United Utilities reducing discharges into Lake Windermere as it cuts about 8,400 spills a year, says Ofwat.
South West Water will spend £70m upgrading storage and infrastructure to cut discharges into coastal waters and rivers in Falmouth and Sidmouth, and Anglian is spending £27m to reduce discharges from its storm overflows.
Water companies have also been told to cut phosphate pollution from 14 treatment works.
Rebecca Pow, the water minister, said: “These new schemes will help accelerate the delivery of the urgent improvements we need to protect our environment. It includes £1.1bn of new investment to stop sewage discharges at sites across the country and will deliver a reduction of 10,000 discharges per year in places like Lake Windermere, the River Wharfe, Falmouth and Sidmouth.”
David Black, the chief executive of Ofwat, said the regulator had worked with water companies to accelerate projects. “We want to see companies making more rapid progress in delivering improvements and will hold them to account if they fall short.”
