A judge has called it a shocking and wholesale disregard for the environment. An industry that was privatised in 1989 with no debt at all now carries seventy-two billion pounds of it. And in the summer of 2025 the body meant to be watching the water quietly cancelled ten thousand of its own tests. None of this is campaigning. All of it is on the public record, and every figure below is linked to the document it came from.
This is not a matter of opinion. It has been tested in court, and the findings are on the public record.
I am satisfied so that I am sure that each of the offences were committed deliberately.
Mr Justice Johnson, sentencing Southern Water, July 202125In July 2021 Southern Water was fined £90 million for 6,971 illegal sewage discharges between 2010 and 2015, across 17 sites in Kent, Sussex and Hampshire.25 The judge started from £135 million and reduced it by a third for the guilty plea. It was more than four times the previous record, and the company already held 168 previous convictions and cautions when it was sentenced.26
| Figure | What it measures | Source |
|---|---|---|
| £90m | fine imposed on Southern Water in July 2021 for 6,971 illegal sewage discharges between 2010 and 2015 | Crown Court25 |
| 168 | previous convictions and cautions already held by Southern Water at the time of sentencing | Crown Court26 |
| £135m | the fine the judge started from, reduced by a third for the guilty plea. More than four times the previous record | Crown Court26 |
| £122.7m | Ofwat’s largest ever penalty, against Thames Water in May 2025. Three quarters of its storm overflows were found to be spilling routinely rather than in exceptional circumstances | Ofwat27 |
| £1.85m | fine for South West Water in June 2026 over the Brixham cryptosporidium outbreak, the highest ever drinking water prosecution. More than 16,000 households were put under a boil water notice and at least 537 people fell ill | DWI prosecution28 |
| £158m | total fines secured from water companies since 2015, across more than 70 prosecutions | Environment Agency1 |
Ofwat investigated how each water and sewerage company in England runs its sewage treatment works and its sewer network. These are the outcomes published for seven of the nine.
| Company | Outcome of Ofwat’s wastewater investigation | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Thames Water | £122.7m | Ofwat27 |
| Anglian Water | £62.8m | Ofwat29 |
| Yorkshire Water | £40m | Ofwat30 |
| South West Water | £24m | Ofwat29 |
| Northumbrian Water | £17m | Ofwat31 |
| Severn Trent Water | No penalty | Ofwat32 |
| United Utilities | Enforcement case still open at August 2026 | Ofwat32 |
Ofwat concluded its case against Severn Trent Water in July 2026. It found the company in breach of its wastewater obligations but imposed no financial penalty, accepting formal undertakings instead and saying the company’s response set the standard expected of the industry. Severn Trent cut spills per storm overflow by 41 per cent in 2025 against 2024, despite heavier rainfall than some other regions.32
Water in England and Wales was privatised in 1989 carrying nothing. What has happened to the money since is a matter of published accounts.
| Figure | What it measures | Source |
|---|---|---|
| £0 to £72bn | industry debt, from nothing at privatisation in 1989 to seventy-two billion pounds by 2024 | Analysis33 |
| £78bn | paid out in dividends by the sixteen regional monopolies in the years since privatisation | Analysis34 |
| £17.6bn | net debt built up by Thames Water alone, which has warned of material uncertainty over its future | Reported35 |
| 36% | average allowed rise in household water bills between 2025 and 2030 | Ofwat36 |
| 44% | real terms increase in water bills in England and Wales since privatisation | Analysis34 |
| 51% | rise in complaints to the Consumer Council for Water in 2025 | CCW36 |
| 1 in 5 | litres put into supply is lost to leaks, about 2,617 million litres every day across England | Environment Agency37 |
| £2.4bn | in physical flood damage in England every year, rising to £3.6bn by 2050 | Environment Agency38 |
| £100m | spent by one water company on equipment for groundwater sources with high nitrate | edie39 |
| £12m | for a single nitrate removal plant, costing nearly £1m a year to run | edie39 |
Bills are allowed to rise by more than a third over the next five years to pay for the catching up, while one litre in every five put into supply is lost before it reaches a tap. The last two rows are the ones a farmer should notice.
Every kilo of nitrogen that leaves a field has to be taken out again downstream, in a plant that has to be built, powered and paid for every year the load keeps arriving.
The cost that never appears on a farm invoiceBetween May and July 2025 the Environment Agency paused or cancelled around 10,000 scheduled water quality tests at its main laboratory in Devon because of staff shortages, according to internal documents obtained by Unearthed. The tests covered nitrates, phosphates, oxygen demand, discharge compliance and protected areas including the River Wye. The laboratory team responsible was down to 26 full time staff after a significant number of departures. Five English regions entered drought during the same period.10
Janina Gray of WildFish described routine monitoring as the backbone of environmental protection. Jo Bradley of Stormwater Shepherds said failing to test leaves a gaping hole in our understanding of river health.10 The Rivers Trust has separately criticised the risk-based approach to monitoring for leaving out rivers deemed low risk, for relying on an outdated list of tested chemicals, and for never publishing the sites behind a classification.3
The tests were being cut in the same year that pollution by the companies rose. The Environment Agency’s own report on their performance, published in July 2025, recorded the following.
| Figure | What it measures | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 75 | serious pollution incidents by water companies in 2024, up 60% on the 47 recorded in 2023 | Environment Agency7 |
| 2,801 | total water company pollution incidents in 2024, up 29% in a single year | Environment Agency7 |
| 81% | of serious incidents caused by three companies: Thames 33, Southern 15 and Yorkshire 13 | Environment Agency7 |
| 24% | of water company sites inspected were found to be breaching their permits | Environment Agency7 |
| 88 | recommendations in the Independent Water Commission report, after which the government moved to abolish Ofwat | Cunliffe review40 |
This report demonstrates continued systemic failure by some companies to meet their environmental targets.
Alan Lovell, Chair of the Environment Agency, 18 July 20257The same month, the Office for Environmental Protection concluded that Defra, Ofwat and the Environment Agency had all failed to comply with environmental law in their regulation of combined sewer overflows. It closed the case only after corrective action was taken.24 The Independent Water Commission, chaired by Sir Jon Cunliffe, made 88 recommendations, after which the government moved to abolish Ofwat and merge its functions.40
Fines, penalties and a new regulator all act on the pipe. Sixty per cent of the nitrogen arriving in England’s rivers never goes near one.
It comes off farmland, and no treatment works, court or regulator can reach it there.8 It has to be held in the soil before it ever starts moving, which means the soil itself has to change.
The Soil First Initiative works on the soil itself, using natural soil biology to build structure and organic matter so that farmland holds rain and nutrients instead of shedding them. It is done field by field and catchment by catchment, the land stays in full production throughout, and the change is measured in the soil and in the water. See how it works, or read the full evidence file.
A nitrate law in 1991, statutory farming rules in 2018, and 14.3 per cent of waters in good condition in 2026.
Thirty-five years of nitrate regulation, and sixty per cent of it still comes off farmland.
Fifty-five per cent of river water bodies fail the phosphorus standard, and it travels on soil.