County Cllr calls for tougher action against water companies

“Companies are now blaming people “working from home” as an excuse for their own incompetence”.

County Cllr Julie Gibson, the Labour Shadow Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change has called for better regulation and fines for water companies. Her calls come as companies continue to dump raw sewage into rivers and lakes, with some now introducing hose pipe bans across many parts of the Country and blaming residents “working from home” as an excuse for their own incompetence.

Councillor Gibson said: “What we are witnessing is a total abdication of the duty to provide clean, safe water with companies more focused on profits than people. Locally, we are still seeing problems with sewage being dumped into the sea at Blackpool with United Utilities saying they are still working on treating a pipe that would alleviate the issue; yet we have no clear deadline on when that will be finished. What makes this even more astonishing is that in the six months ending September 2022, United Utilities made £426 million in profits for their shareholders, but they can’t even fix a pipe in a timely manner.”

She continued: “But we also have the farcical situation developing in the South East, where South East Water are introducing hosepipe bans with the head of the company saying too many people “working from home” is having an effect on supplies. I am astonished at this; we really are in the “silly season” for excuses. This is just not good enough; the current penalties are clearly insufficient and not even a drop in the ocean when it comes to their profits. The Government needs to step up and legislate to prevent dividends and bonuses being paid out to shareholders and bosses until they have sorted out the infrastructure problems.”

Cllr Gibson said: “But it is hard to enforce any action against water companies when we have a Conservative Government that freely allows water companies to discharge sewage into rivers, seas and lakes without consequence. Labour forced a vote in Parliament to end sewage discharge into our rivers, lakes, and seas yet the Tories voted against it. We need to see mandatory monitoring of all sewage outlets and ensure that water companies who routinely and systematically break the law are held to account.”