Thames Water has been rated only two stars in the Environment Agency’s latest annual report, with the number of serious pollution incidents on the rise.
The Environment Agency’s annual performance report has said that Thames Water “requires significant improvement in a number of areas” after it was found the total number of pollution incidents increased from 271 in 2021 to 331 in 2022.
The report assesses water companies and then gives them a rating out of four stars.
Four companies, including Thames Water, have been given the same rating for 2022 as the previous year.
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Environment Agency Thames area director, Emma Hill, said she was “very concerned about the company's late delivery of environmental improvement works”.
She said: “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 the company if this is not the case”.
The agency is particularly concerned about Thames Water’s “late or non-reporting” of serious incidents, as only six out of 17 serious pollution incidents were self-reported.
This equates to a self-reporting rate of 35 per cent which is the worst performance in the sector.
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Oxford City and Green Party councillor Chris Jarvis said the two-star rating “should be a shocking badge of shame” and was “the latest evidence that Thames Water is a walking disaster”.
He said: “With every passing day, it becomes clearer and clearer that it is time to end the organised scam of privatisation.
“Thames Water should be taken into public ownership so it can be made to work for people and not profit.”
The Environment Agency’s report found that Thames Water was responsible for 50 per cent of the most serious incidents across the whole water company sector.
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Earlier this month, Thames Water was fined £3.33m after millions of litres of raw sewage flooded two rivers near Gatwick.
Judge Christine Laing KC DL told Lewes crown court Thames Water deliberately misled the Environment Agency during its investigation.
The untreated effluent killed several thousand fish after equipment failed in late 2017, and the consequence was sewage pouring into one river and then another for several hours.
Water minister, Rebecca Pow, said the government had put in place “new regulatory powers which allow the Environment Agency to impose sanctions on water companies without always going through the courts”.
She said: “The report shows there is significant work to do to drive the improvements in our rivers and seas that we need to see.”
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The agency has secured fines of over £150 million through prosecutions against water companies since 2015.
An Thames Water spokesman 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.
"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."
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