A clear case of regulatory failure? Examining Illegal Sewage Discharges by the Water Industry in England and Wales. - By Dido Gompertz

A clear case of regulatory failure? Examining Illegal Sewage Discharges by the Water Industry in England and Wales.

 By Dido Gompertz

The sewage crisis in England and Wales's waterways has been widely condemned by the media, public and politicians. Releases of untreated sewage should be strictly limited to “storm overflows”, when systems cannot handle large influxes of water. However. in 2020 alone, there were 403,375 incidents, with some even occurring during drought periods. Since writing this briefing, the Environment Agency announced that 2023 was the worst year for sewage spills so far, with 464,056 recorded incidents and 3.6 million hours of sewage spills recorded in England and Wales – over double that of 2022.

The consequences for the environment and for human and animal health, to say nothing of the economic damage to local businesses and to productivity.

The immediate causes are obvious. For decades, utilities have failed to adequately invest in updating pipes and other infrastructure to maintain good service and care of our waterways, a public good. This underinvestment has led to what the UK's Industry and Regulators Committee identified as a “network unable to cope”. For this, water companies must accept culpability.

But what enabled them to flout the rules, especially at this scandal-worthy frequency and scale? The regulatory bodies for England and Wales's water quality – Ofwat, the Environment Agency (EA), Natural Resource Wales – have a core mandate to ensure compliance but have been slow to clamp down on this breach of consumer and public trust. My research into the relationship between the private water companies and government-funded regulators has concluded that insufficient monitoring and delayed enforcement actions are critical causes with both resulting from chronic government underfunding over many years.

This year, with the UK at a political crossroads, my research suggests that environmental NGOs can drive change through engagement with ministers, industry stakeholders and the public. Specifically:

·      Monitoring is an effective deterrent to noncompliance. NGOs should campaign for better funded regulatory bodies to ensure monitors are installed and working, and to build a specialist workforce capable of gathering and collating the evidence needed to support effective prosecutions and other accountability mechanisms for the water industry. Community monitoring, such as reporting sickness from polluted waterways, can support these efforts by providing compelling evidence of the impact of sewage discharges on people's lives.

·      Fostering an open dialogue through convenings and workshops with utilities can build support and understanding within the sector. These dialogue processes can encourage knowledge sharing to improve performance, including sharing insights and experience with new technologies and nature-based solutions.

·      The public "bad" of polluted waterways has a widespread impact across interest groups, part of the reason the issue has gained traction as a public scandal. Mobilising varied groups with environmental, economic, and consumer concerns will motivate the state to act on broad public consensus.

·      An election campaign and a new government provides an opportunity for change. NGOs should engage ministers and shadow ministers as they finalise election manifesto pledges. After the election, NGOs should engage and upskill the incoming government, and build bipartisan support for addressing the issue of sewage discharges by UK water utilities, which impacts us all.

Note 1: Dido's policy brief, titled 'A clear case of regulatory failure? Examining illegal sewage discharges by the water industry in England and Wales' was highly commended for the Chronos Sustainability Prize 2024. A copy of the policy brief can be downloaded here

Note 2: Dido has an MA in History from the University of Edinburgh and is completing an MSc in Environmental Policy and Regulation from LSE. In between degrees she worked in climate communications for the think tank E3G and has been involved in campaigns ranging from sustainable finance regulation to climate diplomacy.