United Utilities has been fined £800,000 after illegally abstracting 22 billion litres of water from boreholes in Lancashire following a prosecution by the Environment Agency.

Ofwat has awarded two more contracts without going out to tender to external consultants to provide additional capacity to support the delivery of the 2024 Price Review - due to “extreme urgency brought about by events unforeseeable for the contracting authority.”

The Environment Agency has launched an eight-week consultation on changes to variable monetary penalties which will scrap the £250,000 cap on civil penalties and significantly broaden their scope to target a wider range of environmental offences.

A legal claim has been issued against Severn Trent Water, one of six UK water companies who are facing legal collective actions for allegedly abusing their dominant market position by underreporting the number of times they cause pollution incidents and overcharging customers as a result.

The Government is considering extending a new economic Growth Duty to Ofwat which would see the water sector regulator required to “have regard to the desirability of promoting economic growth” when carrying out core functions.

The Ofwat-led Regulators’ Alliance for Progressing Infrastructure Development (RAPID) has acknowledged that there are areas where it needs to improve its performance, following feedback from stakeholders in its annual stakeholder survey for 2021- 2022.

Ofwat has launched a new consultation on its proposals to develop a new £100 million fund to help save water - the water efficiency fund was confirmed in the final methodology for the 2024 price review.