Thames Water is undertaking the largest ever upgrade of the sewers and sewage treatment works in London and the Thames Valley by upgrading more than 250 of its sites - its updated River Health Action Plan details work to deliver a £1.6 billion investment.

The commitment builds on Thames Water’s recent pledge to double its investment in sewage related infrastructure from the previous two years by spending £1.6 billion over the next two years on upgrading its sewage treatment works and sewers, an investment that will reduce storm discharges and pollution incidents.

Thames Water was the first company in the sector to voluntarily provide customers with near-real time information on all untreated sewage discharges across its network with its interactive event duration monitoring (EDM) map. From now on, this data will be enhanced with information about the plans for individual sewage works and discharge points.

Sarah Bentley, Chief Executive of Thames Water said the upgraded EDM website builds on its decision earlier this year to voluntarily provide near real-time data about all discharges of untreated sewage.

Customers will now have access to a site-by-site breakdown of where work is or will be taking place and the benefits it will provide. As planned projects are developed, the EDM map will continue to be updated with the latest data to reflect the company’s current plans.

Sarah Bentley commented:

“We are under no illusions of the scale of the challenge ahead of us in improving the health of our rivers and are determined to being transparent about the actions we are taking to significantly reduce discharges.

“We will continue to be open with our customers about how we are investing money to improve performance and reduce discharges.”

In addition to the upgraded EDM map, Thames Water’s updated River Health Action Plan demonstrates the progress the company has made across the three pillars of its strategy to improve the health of rivers in the Thames catchment. The three pillars focus on:

• Eliminating polluting discharges to rivers
• Working with partners to improve river quality
• Discharging high quality treated effluent that meets all required standards

Eliminating polluting discharges to rivers

The Action Plan says Thames is continuing to deliver targeted pollution reduction activities, such as replacing pumped sewer mains which have failed, reducing blockages by cleaning the sewers, customer education to prevent the incorrect disposal of products into sewers, building up its smart waste programme, and upgrading its sewage treatment works for permit compliance.

In addition, the Thames Tideway Tunnel, which will be completed by 2025, is designed to dramatically improve the water quality of the River Thames by capturing around 95% of sewage overflows. This investment represents the largest and most significant wastewater project since the creation of the London sewage system in the 1860s.

Working with partners to improve river quality

Thames Water is trialling three Smarter Water Catchments programmes in the Crane, Chess and Evenlode catchments, collaboratively working in partnership with these communities to co-create and co-deliver ten-year improvement plans and investing £9m from 2020 to 2025. For remaining river catchments, Thames Water is spending £5million in a 5-year support fund, focusing on improving the capacity and capability of catchment partnerships.

Discharging high quality treated effluent that meets all required standards

In the Thames catchment, excess phosphorus in the water is a significant problem - a large proportion of this comes from human wastewater. By 2020, Thames Water had reduced phosphorus levels from historic levels by 74%, and improvements in the company’s current plans, once delivered, will reduce this further to 80% in the first years of its next business plan period beginning in 2025.

“The scale of the challenge demands urgent and systemic reform with shared support from our customers, our regulators and the government”

Introducing the updated Plan, Sarah Bentley said:

“In summarising what needs to be done, my approach is to ‘speak up’ – by stating clearly that there are serious problems that we need to fix; to ‘open up’ – by providing full and open information about what is happening; and of course to ‘clean up’ - by doing more of what we know needs to be done to improve the situation, and doing it as quickly and effectively as possible…..

“We understand there are no quick fixes. Population growth will increase the strain on our sewage network and treatment centres. And because of climate change, the south east of England is experiencing heavier downpours, which can overwhelm parts of our network and some of our sewage treatment works. The scale of the challenge demands urgent and systemic reform with shared support from our customers, our regulators and the government.”

Click here to download the River Health Report