Ignorance breeding discontent towards water firms, poll shows

More than half of water customers believe challenges facing the sector including drought, leaking pipes and polluted rivers are squarely in the control of companies and feel frustrated at how these are dealt with.

A report from CCW highlights the level of dissatisfaction many consumers feel towards their water company and underlines a need to engage with disaffected consumers.

“Understanding and awareness of the practicalities around topical issues is extremely low,” the report said and added this low understanding made media coverage that “pointed fingers” at water companies extremely impactful.

Most people (87%) believe water and sewerage companies should be responsible for water leaks; 60% believe they should be responsible for tackling river pollution, and 56% said it was the responsibility of companies to tackle drought and hosepipe bans.

Storm overflows and leaks were the most damaging to perceptions along with the impression that companies are only motivated by profits and paying bonuses when environmental and leakage performance is not perfect.

Most consumers (71%) said pollution has negatively impacted their perceptions of their water company. While two-thirds thought the responsibility for tackling polluted rivers lay with water companies, 30% thought government and policy makers were responsible, and only 7% thought it should be the work of the Environment Agency.

Despite this awareness, many of those same people (71%) said they did not understand the issue but found it shocking regardless. The report said consumers believe raw sewage is released directly into the sea or rivers because it is cheaper and easier than treating and recycling it. This, the report noted, was not challenged by press coverage that often features language such as “dumped” and “raw sewage”.

One respondent said their understanding was “that it’s literally what comes out of the toilet” when they heard about sewage being released.

Awareness of factors such as overflows, agricultural or urban runoff as well as urbanisation was also very low, the survey showed.

CCW said that “upon explanation” participants began to re-evaluate their perception of storm overflows and their impact when used during heavy rainfall.

However, it stressed that consumers “are unlikely to ever engage fully on the detail of storm overflows and river pollution so the focus should be upon a single, simple, message which challenges the narrative around storm overflows”.

Leakage was reported to be a tangible source of frustration for consumers with many associating it as a waste of money as well as money.  A lack of understanding around causes of leakage and the sector’s efforts to address it caused consumers to believe water companies routinely waste water. This resulted in reluctance to modify behaviour when asked to save water during the dry summer.

Similarly, understanding of drought and its causes was low but awareness was high with 67% having heard of drought and bans, while in parts of the country impacted this summer awareness was up to 75%. Those customers felt they “know all about hosepipe bans” because of a perception that they regularly occur. The survey shows that a majority (67%) of those polled felt the announcing of droughts and bans had no effect on their perceptions of their water company. Around a fifth (22%) said it had a negative effect and 11% reported a positive effect.

More than half of respondents who were subject to temporary usage ban at the time of the survey said they did not change the amount of water they used, although 41% reported using less during the restriction.

CCW said communications around leaks in general are failing to reassure or build trust and consumers lack a sense of perspective about the work the sector is doing, or committed to.

When profits and bonuses are discussed alongside challenges, the perception of water companies was negatively impacted for 70% of those surveyed.

CCW called on the sector to move the conversation forward by talking to customers more about the day-to-day work being done to address these issues and improve services and the environment.