South West Water: Water firm 'not honest' about drought preparations in 2022 and 'acted too late', watchdog claims

South West Water has been accused of not being “honest, open” or “transparent” about its drought preparations in the summer of 2022. The Environment Agency (EA) told the water industry regulator Ofwat that SWW was “not honest” with regulators about the risk a drought posed to the company’s water supplies and was inadequately prepared for the heatwave in 2022.

In the summer of 2022 parts of the country almost ran out of water and people in Devon and Cornwall faced hose pipe bans. Reservoirs were dangerously low and three of South West Water’s reservoirs fell to record levels during the drought. 

Greenpeace’s investigations website Unearthed obtained documents under freedom of information laws that revealed the EA’s assessment of the water company’s drought preparedness. In an email to Ofwat in July the EA said: “SWW were not honest, open and transparent with regulators about their drought projections and potential risks to security of supply.” It added that “SWW acted too late” in response to the drought which “presented a genuine risk of loss of supply in west Cornwall”.

The EA told Ofwat that new water sources need to “be considered, applied for and permitted during the drought instead of planned in advance”. No new reservoirs have been built in the UK since the water industry was privatised in 1989.

Since privatisation water companies have paid out £72bn in dividends, borrowing £56bn and increased bills by 40%. Last year SWW was fined over illegal dumping of sewage following investigations by the EA.

A spokesperson for SWW said: “We strongly reject any suggestion that we were not adequately prepared for the risk of drought or that we did not operate in good faith with the regulators. Despite facing a once-in-a-generation drought in the south-west, no customer went without water supply and we successfully maintained a robust supply of water to over 3.5 million customers and 10million visitors to the region.”