It recently came to light that there has been a serious decrease in the sufficiency of water companies, which has created thousands of pollution incidents due to its continued negligence. This data was revealed by Robert Forrester, a whistleblower who worked for the Environment Agency for 9 years, until January of this year. He showed that out of the 2,778 serious pollution incidents reported in 2024, 98% were downgraded by officials, who weren’t able to attend and properly assess even half of them.
During his time at the Agency, Forrester was suspended for his commitment to exposing the truth around these water companies. In 2020, Forrester was shocked by toxicity findings in a sample and contacted Greenpeace himself, who then published a report revealing that sewage waste destined for crops in the UK was contaminated with dangerous “persistent organic pollutants” such as dioxins, furans, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons at “levels that may present a risk to human health”. Now unemployed, Forrester remains committed to his work against the corruption of water companies, determined to create some degree of change.
However, this is a difficult challenge as water companies prove increasingly problematic all across Britain. In 2021, Southern Water was fined £90 million (the largest sum against any water company to date) for dumping billions of litres of raw sewage into protected seas. In a case closer to home, Exmouth proved vulnerable to water pollution, as in 2024, Sarah Lambert went swimming off Exmouth beach, and was later violently sick, suffering life-threatening sepsis after being infected by E coli and Citrobacter bacteria due to a burst of the main pipe pumping sewage in the town. Water pollution also contaminates aquatic habits, causing creatures serious harm and enabling bacteria to safely reproduce.
So why are water companies so dangerously inadequate at managing pollution? The answer traces back to 1989, when Margaret Thatcher decided to privatise water, making the UK the only country in the world to do so, aside from Chile. This decision allowed companies to accumulate large amounts of debt, which is what diverts payments for the surveying and fixing of water infrastructure.
As these crucial payments continue to worsen and be put off, environmental problems become increasingly serious, with climate change itself already placing more pressure on these companies due to the increasing rainfall. There is, however, a chance for change, as an Environmental Agency spokesperson announced plans for the agency to use its largest ever budget to change its approach to water enforcement and compliance, putting them on track to complete 10,000 inspections over this year. This is a crucial step forward, even if it is nowhere near the scale it needs to be.
