Water bills: It is shameful that charges rise while industry bosses earn £25m in bonuses and sewage spills continue

The water companies have had 30 years to invest in our systems, to use money wisely and to stop sewage being discharged into our rivers and seas. Yet we have seen the complete opposite. 

South West Water increased its dividend to shareholders by 8.3% despite the company being investigated due to its leakage and being responsible for thousands of sewage discharges. According to campaign group Top of the Poops, the firm was responsible for 37,587 sewage overflows in 2022.

Yorkshire Water paid £1m to charities after illegally discharging sewage into a stream. In November Portreath beach in Cornwall was “blighted with sewage” for 26 consecutive days with locals saying they are “sick of it” as “brown slick” is visible in the sea.

Whistleblowers at the Environment Agency (EA) revealed that the body has been wrongly downgrading pollution incidents that water companies make and is failing to conduct independent checks. Recently the Angling Trust found that 83% of English rivers are failing pollution standards due to sewage and agricultural waste. 

The list can continue on. Time and time again we are seeing awful sewage discharges ruining our rivers and seas, putting a risk to our health, and nothing has been done to resolve it. Instead, water company bosses have been paid millions, shareholders paid billions and the public left with paying more to fix the problem.

Bills will rise despite a boycott growing in the UK as more and more people decide to withhold the sewage element of their water bills. One woman, Caz Dennett, from Weymouth in Dorset is refusing to pay sewerage charges from Wessex Water because of its “poor performance and appalling pollution record.”

The public are taking a stand, fighting for an end to illegal sewage spills, withholding part of their water bills and yet the only news we get is that we are being asked to pay more to tackle the issue. It has always been clear that we are not being listened to but this just emphasises that fact. 

There is the argument that yes the public will have to foot some of the bill to invest and upgrade our sewer networks. But what about the fact that water company bosses and its shareholders are earning millions, and billions of pounds respectively? And water companies continue to be fined for sewage spills? For example Anglian Water was fined record £2.65m last year after dumping sewage into North Sea - equivalent of three 50m swimming pools. A Surfers Against Sewage report released last year found waste was dumped into UK rivers and seas almost 400,000 times in 2022. 

The money we have already paid has been squandered. Lining the pockets of industry bosses and shareholders while the same old sewage fines, slap on the wrist with some fines continue. It is outrageous and it only fuels campaigners and the public more to take a stand against the industry and continue fighting until we see an end to raw waste being pumped into our waterways.