Regulators given greater powers to stamp out water pollution

Ofwat and the Environment Agency (EA) will be given greater powers to clamp down on polluting water companies.

Additional powers for Ofwat will allow the water regulator to change water company licences without consent of the companies. Meanwhile, the EA has been given free reign to set unlimited fines for firms flouting their environmental responsibilities.

The proposed changes in regulatory powers have been set out by government in its Plan for Water published today (Tuesday 4 April). The changes will be put out to consultation before being enacted under the terms of the Environment Act.

The Plan for Water has been drawn up to drive improvements for customers and the environment.

The plan also sets out expectations for agriculture, highways, policy makers and planners, as well as the water sector, to control sources of pollution and boost water supplies. The integrated approach, the plan states, will be achieved through more investment as well as enhanced regulatory powers.

Enforcement powers will be bolstered through financial penalties for breaching regulations or breaking environmental laws as well as additional funding for the EA to carry out more inspections. The EA will be granted an additional £2.2 million annually to carry out enforcement action while government stated its preference for uncapped pollution fines.

Money collected through financial penalties will be channelled into a Water Restoration Fund, instead of being paid to Treasury, to improve the environment including waterway restoration.

A collaborative approach to resources has been called for by the sector and stakeholders, which government said will be achieved by ensuring water resource plans are joined up regionally and nationally.

It ties together policies on storm overflows, leakage, nutrient control and other government targets to improve river water quality in England. It looks to address ambitions for 75% of waterways to be classified as good set in the 25-Year Environment Plan, which so far have had little progress.

The plan also includes:

• A demand reduction target for non-domestic consumption has been set for the first time at 9% by 2038 and 15% by 2050. This will be part of the overarching ambition to lower consumption by head of population by one-fifth by 2038, which will involve household reduction from 141 litres per capita consumption (PCC) to 121 PCC and a 37% cut in leakage. By 2050 leakage should be halved and household demand should be down to 110 litres PCC. This, the plan stated, will deliver half of the four billion litres/day gap in supply and demand by 2050.
• A catchment approach to managing the water system delivered through tailored catchment action plans will be adopted, with funding for local groups, to improve all water bodies in England.
• Policies and legislation will be streamlined from the current 15 national plans and strategic documents to an outcome-focused framework, which can be integrated with other environmental and government delivery plans.
• Environmental laws to be wound up after leaving the European Union will be improved through the Retained EU Law bill. The Plan for Water talks of targeting investment to ensure environmental improvements have the greatest impact  to achieve the objective of restoring 75% of waters to good ecological status.
• Leakage and water efficiency come into focus with “ambitious targets for water companies to crack down on leakage” with penalties for not achieving targets.
• Minimum product standards for water using household fixtures such as taps, toilets and showers to follow the launch of a water efficiency label.
• A National Chalk Stream Restoration Strategy will see £1 million leveraged each year in partnership projects to improve catchments around chalk streams.
• Agricultural law reform will make farming rules clearer and more effective to improve the environment, this will be alongside agricultural schemes to target enhancing spaces for nature close to rivers. Farmers will be supported to hold more water on their land in on-farm reservoirs and with better irrigation equipment.
• Government promised actions to reduce the impact of roads on water quality by including water quality concerns int eh 2025-30 road investment strategy.
• Sustainable drainage, announced in January, will be rolled out in new developments. Subject to consultation.
• Campaigns for action against non-flushable wet wipes will see progress as the Plan promises to bring forward measures to end the sale of wipes that include plastic and discuss with manufacturers about including the word flushable.
• Restrictions are proposed on the use of forever chemicals that enter the water system to manage the risks of these reaching rivers and seas.

The plan has been welcomed by the water sector for recognising the role other sectors have to improve rivers. Trade body Water UK said: “We strongly welcome today’s plan, which for the first time deals with every sector that has a responsibility for the water environment.”

The group highlighted the need for investment and better policy in the plan, particularly to address plastics in wet wipes, which the sector has long campaigned to ban.

However, Labour’s shadow environment secretary, Jim McMahon, described the plan as “nothing more than a shuffling of the deck chairs and a reheating of old, failed measures that simply give the green light for sewage dumping to continue for decades to come.”

He said it was the “third sham of a Tory water plan since the summer” and called the plan out for not setting out how, if, or when the sewage scandal would end.

“Its flagship policy of so-called unlimited fines is hollow given polluters and the government know that proper enforcement is held back by lengthy and complex investigations after the dumping has taken place.”

Labour has brought forward legal measures to enforce mandatory monitoring and automatic fines at the point of dumping, targets for 2030 and accountability for company bosses.

Lord Cromwell, who sits on the Industry and Regulators Committee, called for action to back up the words. He said: “Announcements are fine but they need to be backed by action – and that includes ensuring that the regulators are both sufficiently resourced and more effectively held to account against public objectives and metrics.”

“Everything now being announced was highlighted in the Committee’s recent report, The affluent and the effluent: cleaning up the failures of water regulation. This includes: holding water companies properly to account, delivering the substantially overdue investment needed to address sewage pollution from storm overflows, and banning non-degradable wet wipes.”

Rivers Trust described the catchment-based approach as “the only logical management scale on which to deliver solutions for our water environment” and welcomed the ringfencing of fines but cautioned against continued focus on grey infrastructure.

“Our experience has shown that nature-based solutions can deliver for water quality at the same time as managing flood risk, mitigating climate change, and halting the decline in biodiversity,” the environmental group said. “We need more focus on using our limited time, land and money to deliver more efficiently for our environment. We still have gaps in regional governance to link the local scale to the national, and we are still waiting for a long-term overarching, outcome-based target for healthy water.”

The inclusion of non-household demand reduction targets was praised by market operator MOSL. Lyvia Nabarro, head of market engagement at MOSL, said: “We are pleased to see Defra’s Plan for Water emphasises the importance of managing demand to ensure plentiful future water supplies and the importance of rapidly increasing smart meter installations for non-household as well as household customers in the coming years. This will both help businesses to identify opportunities to use water more efficiently and achieve the target to reduce non-household water use by 9% by 2038.”