Thames Water has been ordered to pay more than £700,000 in fines and costs for polluting the Maidenhead Ditch in Berkshire – killing fish and leaving many in distress.

Water company efforts to protect the environment have been described as ‘simply unacceptable’ in an Environment Agency (EA) report published today with only one of the major water and sewage companies in England performing at the level expected.

Ofwat has today confirmed a package of measures to strengthen water companies’ financial resilience, by calling on them to adopt a common set of standards.

Ofwat is writing to Anglian Water, SES Water, Thames Water, and Yorkshire Water to give them early notice that it has substantial concerns about their proposed costs for maintaining business as usual service (base expenditure) for the 2020-25 period.

Following the publication of Ofwat’s findings against Southern Water for sewage treatment failures which resulted in a record £126 million penalty for the utility, Chief Executive Rachel Fletcher has described it as a dark week for the water industry.

Water regulator Ofwat is seeking views from interested parties about the development and implementation of a bilateral market in water resources in England.

The Prime Minister has today announced that the UK will eradicate its net contribution to climate change by 2050. 

In the face of ongoing concerns that the retail water market is not functioning as efficiently and effectively as it should, Ofwat has said it wants to avoid a situation where the opening of the market has caused “a divergence of basic service standards provided by wholesalers between domestic and business customers.”