Devon's water provider insists it is making environmental improvements
South West Water has been rated two stars in an annual report, meaning improvements are required
Devon's water provider has been told it needs to make improvements to its environmental performance.
The Environment Agency has released its annual report on England’s nine water and sewerage companies.
It's found none of the nine English water and sewage companies achieved all the environmental expectations set out for them from 2015 to 2020.
The report rates each company in England from 1 star to 4 star, for performance on environmental commitments such as pollution incidents and treatment work compliance.
South West Water was rated as 2 star which means improvements are required.
The Environment Agency said Southern Water and South West Water both performed significantly below target for this metric, Southern Water for the second year in a row and South West Water for the tenth year in the row.
In a statement Iain Vosper, South West Water’s Director of Waste Water Services, said:
“We take our guardianship of the natural environment very seriously and want to do more. We are disappointed with aspects of our environmental performance for 2020 and with minor pollution incidents. We are pleased to say that so far in 2021, we have achieved 60% lower than the figure reported today in the EPA report for the same period last year. We are investing in known hotspots to sustainably reduce pollutions year on year. We are confident in our plans to be a 4-star company and one of the best performing companies in the industry.
“Looking after the environment is a strategic priority for the business and our goal is to improve river and coastal quality, seeing it as part of our unique role supporting people and the places they love, for generations to come.
“We are focused on making a difference for the region. That’s why we are currently investing £150 million in our largest environmental programme for 15 years, which includes a commitment to reduce pollutions by 80% and additional storage protection measures to enhance our bathing waters. We know we can do more and are committed to doing so.
“On top of our large investment programme, we’ve also taken responsibility for the Isles of Scilly to improve infrastructure there to improve lives and livelihoods for the community.
“We have been focused on taking more action to protect our rivers and seas from pollution.
“We have an ambitious plan which is prioritised on the areas to bring about most benefit to the natural environment. Included is improved root cause analysis and a focused programme of investment on priority sites.
“Included in this are plans to extend our overflow investigations and monitoring programme, to develop an inland river amenity-use pilot and to trial better surface water separation and catchment management to reduce storm overflows during heavy rainfall.
“We have made improvements to bathing waters and shellfish waters and have targeted investment on storm overflows that needed it most.
“And with our unique Watershare+ scheme, the majority of our investors are now customers in the South West, who have a stake and a say in the business. We have regular engagement and they can and do hold us to account which we welcome as part of this first of its kind, water company customer share scheme.
"Our record on helping improve bathing waters clearly shows our intent and success, with waters in the South West now among the cleanest for bathing in Europe.”
As a result of South West Water’s poor performance, the company now has a bespoke performance commitment with Ofwat to ensure they are aiming to achieve and maintain 4-star status from 2023-2025.