A highly critical new report by the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee is warning that a failing water sector in which “water companies increasingly look like financial institutions rather than businesses servicing monopolised critical infrastructure” is in need of “root and branch reform”.

Thames Water has said that its current performance is falling short of expectations due to deteriorating asset health, climatic events and cost pressures.

Pennon Group, owner of South West Water, Bournemouth Water and Bristol Water, has raised its final dividend in line with its dividend policy– despite falling from a profit of £127.7 million in 2021/22 to a pretax loss of £8.5 million in 2022/23 in “an extraordinary year” which has tested its operational resilience.

Water sector regulator Ofwat has outlined new plans intended to ensure customers do not fund executive bonus payments where they have not been sufficiently earned through the company's performance for customers and the environment.

Ofwat has today published its annual assessment of company operational performance and a summary of the financial resilience of companies - Northumbrian Water, Southern Water, South West Water, Thames Water, Welsh Water and Yorkshire Water have been named as the worst performing companies operationally.

S&P Global Ratings has revised its outlook for South East Water (Finance) Ltd.’s debt to negative from stable, as high inflation weights on the company’s credit metrics.

Water companies have made progress towards meeting challenging targets set by the regulator to tackle issues such as leakage, but some companies’ environmental records are still not good enough, according to the latest annual assessment of water companies’ performance by Ofwat.

On-site sludge treatment technology is offering big food and drink manufacturing companies the opportunity to make major cost savings, improve environmental performance and achieve significant operational benefits – and all with a payback of less than two years.

Ofwat has set out its expectations for the way it expects all monopoly water companies to report on their annual performance for 2017-18.