We cannot let drinking water become the next source of public outcry

Last month, Southern’s Water’s corporate affairs director George Eykyn marked his interim role becoming permanent with a thoughtful post on LinkedIn about the reputational challenges the sector faces.

He referenced a “shallow ‘bad guy’ narrative” which seems to now be perpetually layered over the water sector, pointing to the very real consequences of this in terms of abuse of workers in the street. At no point did Eykyn plead for sympathy for Southern Water or the sector more widely. He merely called for greater focus on solutions rather than a blame game.

The comment got picked up by newspapers who failed to see the irony in going straight to rent-a-quotes like Feargal Sharkey, who refused to engage with the substance of Eykyn’s argument and instead resorted to abuse. Sharkey and other campaigners took particular umbrage at the suggestion that revenue from domestic bills has lost ground over the last decade or more. The necessary upgrades to water infrastructure should be funded by humble pie alone, it seems.

My fear is that far from improving, the narrative around water companies faces another nosedive – and remarkably the trigger could be concerns around drinking water.

As a reminder, compliance with drinking water regulations in England stood at 99.97% for the last full year on record (2022), compared to a peak of 98% in the early days of privatisation. Put simply, tap water in this country is in excellent condition.

Despite this, drinking water is in the spotlight, following the contamination of supply in Brixham via the parasite cryptosporidium. This case has understandably attracted a lot of media attention, given the length of time a boil notice has been in place and the unpleasant consequences for those affected. South West Water has held up its hands to issues with communications at the outset. However, since the company got a handle on this live event, compensation has increased and updates have been regular.

I’m not suggesting South West should have expected a positive response here, of course. People got sick, they were inconvenienced and they have every right to be unhappy.

However, the bad guy narrative has led to a massive over-simplification of a complex situation. South West Water has absorbed the abuse coming its way despite the fact that this outbreak started because of damage to an air valve on private land. There have been rumours (not confirmed by the company I should stress) that part of the reason for the early confusion was the landowner’s reluctance to let South West Water on to their property to assess the damage.

Part of me is puzzled by the firm’s reluctance to defend itself and point out that others have to shoulder some of the blame. On a wider point, why doesn’t the sector come back at the lazy criticisms of Sharkey et al by asking them to give the same kind of scrutiny to agriculture – the main culprits for failures in water quality (Sharkey has actually addressed this in the past by saying that he made a conscious choice to focus on water companies as he didn’t have time to fight everyone). But then perhaps I’m guilty of trying to reverse engineer that same bad guy narrative and encourage more squabbling.

But if water companies are going to persist in soaking up criticism even when they are not at fault, there is little chance of the narrative changing. This will be especially unfair if the blame game does indeed shift to encompass drinking water quality. There are already signs of this happening, with an unwarranted level of scrutiny pointed towards an incident in Beckenham, where there are insinuations but little actual evidence that drinking water (and therefore Thames Water) is to blame. Once again this morning, another Thames boil notice affecting 600 properties in Surrey – and traced back to a fuel leak at a petrol station – has received prominent coverage in national media outlets. Would this have happened a month ago?

There is a risk of this spiralling, with every outbreak of diarrhoea treated as a matter of national significance and drinking water taking all the flak.

Water companies were ill-prepared when combined sewer overflow spills hit the headlines. They need to have a clearer defence if their world-leading performance on drinking water is going to be trashed. This is a case where water companies are very clearly the good guys. They shouldn’t be afraid to say that.