In August 2022 the government set out its plan which requires the largest infrastructure programme in water company history to tackle sewage overflows. The 60-page plan prioritises investments in priority sites including protected habitats and bathing waters. Since then, £1.6 billion investment has been brought forward to speed up vital water infrastructure projects, cutting thousands of overflow spills each year.
Ministers also reconfirmed that they will be unleashing unlimited penalties so that polluters pay for their impact on the environment, with funds now being reinvested into rivers and water bodies. Today’s next step will place the target in the Sewage Overflow Reduction Plan on a statutory footing.
Commenting, Jo Churchill MP said:
“Residents across the Bury St Edmunds constituency are rightly concerned by the state of our waterways and so am I. Working with groups across the constituency I have been able to feed these concerns to government.
“The new Plan for Water goes further and provides a clear strategy for tackling urgent challenges with increased investment, stronger regulation, and stricter enforcement on polluters, building on the significant actions taken thus far.
“Changing the law to increase penalties for environmental damage caused by water companies, and permit charges to fund more inspections with new inspection targets, will all help. Reinvesting fines from water companies into a new Water Restoration Fund will make polluters pay for damage they cause.
“New legislation mandates that water companies upgrade their infrastructure and invest in new technologies, such as desalination, that can help combat pollution and enhance water resilience. I’ve been clear with Anglian Water that more must be done locally, therefore, I am pleased that Anglia Water are investing hundreds of millions of pounds to drive change. They know I expect them to work with others to ensure we protect and enhance the Lark.”
Commenting, Secretary of State Therese Coffey MP said:
“It was a Conservative government that introduced 100 per cent monitoring of storm overflows. We’ve brought forward stronger regulations, tougher enforcement and the largest water infrastructure programme in history – an expected £56 billion investment – and we will make fines unlimited so that the polluter always pays.”
The Environment Secretary has written to water companies requiring a plan on every overflow on her desk by the end of June. This builds on work to introduce mandatory monitoring, which is up from just 7% in 2010 to 100% by the end of this year. Thanks to this monitoring, regulators are undertaking the largest investigation into water companies in their history related to illegal sewage dumping, building on record fines of £141m secured since 2015.
