The crackdown on water companies to improve water quality has seen nearly 500 inspections carried out by Environment Agency officers in the South West since April.
New teams of inspectors have hit the ground running and ramped up checks of water company assets significantly. The teams will continue to grow to support the Environment Agency’s goal to quadruple inspections to 4,000 by the end of March 2025.
South West Water sites in Devon and Cornwall have been visited 215 times since April. A team of 15 officers is dedicated to holding water companies to account and flagging issues for attention. Issues like sewage treatment works not being compliant with permits and putting measures in place to address concerns about storm overflows.
Across Bristol, Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire, more than 230 inspections have been carried out by a team of 7 officers, with a second team of 8 expected to start early next year.
Clarissa Newell is one of the Environment Agency’s water industry regulation managers. She said: “Water company performance is not good enough. We will change that. We now have more people who are very good at finding faults, flagging them, and checking progress.
“This focused approach of turning inspection data into actionable intelligence will drive improvements in the water industry which we and the public expect to see.”
The surge in inspections is part of the national Water Industry Regulation Transformation programme that will see up to 500 new and experienced staff recruited across the country.
Together, the new recruits will enable water company inspections to increase to 4,000 by the end of March 2025,10,000 in 2025/6 and 11,500 in 2026/27.
The Environment Agency is already conducting the largest ever criminal investigation into potential widespread non-compliance by water and sewerage companies at thousands of sewage treatment works. Since 2015, the Environment Agency has concluded 63 prosecutions against water and sewerage companies securing fines of over £151 million.
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