Water industry promises £22bn of environmental investment, funded by rising bills
Water industry promises £22bn of environmental investment, funded by rising bills
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The Environment Agency has secured a commitment to carry out 24,000 actions over the next five years. Water companies must clean up the environment and reduce pollution in what the Environment Agency (EA) says is the biggest investment in protecting rivers and seas since privatisation.
The agency has secured a commitment from the privatised water industry to carry out 24,000 targeted actions in a £22bn investment in the environment, according to details of the final water industry national environment programme for the next five years. But the investment will be paid for by customers in bill rises over the same time.
Letters have already been sent out by some companies, including Thames Water, which is struggling in the face of bankruptcy, announcing rises to customer bills. Thames customers are being told their bills will rise by between £16 and £19 a month this year to start paying for investment in fixing pipes, reducing pollution and protecting the environment.
In their letter Thames – which has admitted it has sweated its assets and underinvested for decades – told customers: “For us to continue to deliver billions of litres of clean water and take wastewater away from millions of homes, it’s vital that we invest in our network and infrastructure over the next five years … extra funding is now essential to make improvements to our services.”.
The regulator Ofwat said on Wednesday the investment in the environment, which has been secured, represented a quadrupling of the investment of the last five years. It includes a commitment by the companies to establish trials to remove nitrates from treated sewage, restore nationally important chalk streams, and install what they are calling “bespoke biosecurity measures” to remove invasive species.
