Weekend press: Water firm seizes stake in Devon sewage protester’s home over unpaid bills

In our latest round-up of the weekend’s national news coverage, South West Water has taken a legal stake in a customer’s home after she withheld bill payments in protest over sewage dumping, while Scottish Power’s chief executive has urged the next government to “tackle head-on” the issues holding back the UK’s green transition. Elsewhere, there are plans to build 20 mini reactors across the UK.  

Water firm seizes stake in Devon sewage protester’s home over unpaid bills

South West Water has taken a legal stake in a customer’s home after she withheld her bill payments in a protest over sewage dumping in rivers and the sea.

Thousands of water company customers are thought to be withholding payments but this is the first known case of a company enforcing a claim against a customer’s home.

Imogen May, of Crediton, Devon, has withheld payment since 2019 and has a £2,809 debt. South West Water won a county court judgment over the debt and has claimed an interest in May’s cottage via the Land Registry. When it is sold, the company can claim what it says it is owed.

May has also withheld payment of council tax, arguing that the funds are not spent on people’s priorities, such as environmental projects and children’s mental health services. The council is now applying for a court order to force the sale of May’s cottage.

“This is about using my place of privilege as a homeowner to push the boundaries,” she said. “It’s about necessity – unless we challenge them and show them that we’re not frightened of them, they will continue to do what they’re doing.”

“They are killing our water,” May told the Guardian. “Without our water, we are dead. I care deeply about the planet and biodiversity and I just want to inspire people to stop paying these bastards to rip us off.

“The language of money is the only thing they really understand. They can have it by all means when they spend our money on what it’s designed for. But they are openly polluting our waters and I’m done with it.”

May, who works in a bakery, has frequently taken part in environmental protests. She was arrested while blocking Lambeth Bridge in London as part of an Extinction Rebellion protest in 2019 and released without charge. Charges brought over a protest against the HS2 rail development in Buckinghamshire in 2020 were later dismissed.

May’s home is already up for sale as she had decided to downsize after her two daughters left home. She is undecided about what to do once the house is sold, “but if I am set with a choice to pay these bills or go to prison then I’ll pay the bloody bills,” she said. “I’ve promised my kids that I would not end up in prison.”

A spokesperson for South West Water said it did not comment on individual customers’ cases. “We are serious about tackling storm overflows and change of this scale takes time, ambition and increased investment, and that is why we are investing £850m in our region over two years,” he said. “We will also be the first water company to meet the government target of less than 10 spills per overflow, per year, a decade ahead of target.”

South West Water increased its annual dividend to investors to £127m in May. In the same month, 17,000 of its customers had to boil water due to contamination with the cryptosporidium parasite, which results from faecal pollution of water supplies.

Thousands of customers are thought to be boycotting their payments, with bill strikes ongoing against all nine companies dealing with wastewater in England.

Julie Wassmer, of Whitstable, Kent, helped found the BoycottWaterBills.com website. She has withheld the sewerage portion of her water bill from Southern Water since 2021, totalling about £1,000.

“We know for a fact that we’ve got boycott action in all the wastewater areas,” she said. “We haven’t got a complete figure on how many people are boycotting nationally but we believe it’s thousands,” based on mailing list numbers and web activity.

Wassmer said the process for complaining to water companies was “not fit for purpose” and that the industry regulator, Ofwat, was ineffective in stemming the sewage pollution. “So there’s no chance of holding the companies to account. The whole thing is just a legalised scam and it’s only benefited the companies, the executives and their shareholders, and people are doing the only thing I think we can do, which is to withhold payment.”

She likened the widespread bills boycott to the successful anti-fracking campaigns in which she has also taken part. “There are so many different people involved and that means we’re hydra-headed and more difficult for the companies to pick us off.”

Caz Dennett, of Weymouth, started the Don’t Pay for Dirty Water campaign with Extinction Rebellion. “It seemed like an obvious action for people to take to truly demonstrate how sickening and scandalous the water company racket is,” she said. She has withheld the sewage charge part of her Wessex Water bill for 14 months and is in dispute with the company over the £940 it says she owes.

Katy Taylor, the chief customer officer at Southern Water, said: “To reduce storm overflows, we have a £1.5bn investment increasing storage capacity and finding ways to divert rain back to the environment naturally.”

A Wessex Water spokesperson said: “We agree [storm overflows] are outdated and we’re currently spending over £3m a month to progressively improve them. Subject to regulatory approval, this investment will double.”

The Guardian

Energy boss calls for urgent reforms to hit UK green targets

The boss of one of Britain’s biggest energy companies has urged whoever wins the general election to “tackle head-on” the practical and bureaucratic problems holding back the UK’s green transition.

Keith Anderson, chief executive of Scottish Power, said ministers needed to get to grips with issues ranging from skills shortages to lengthy planning and procurement processes that are slowing down the development of projects such as hydrogen plants and electricity cables.

“We’ve had lots of reviews . . . lots of conversations,” he said in an interview with the Financial Times. “In reality what has changed? Nothing.

“We are still using the same processes, we’re still having all the same conversations. Nothing has changed. Nothing’s got faster and nothing is any different.”

Anderson, who is a member of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s council of business advisers, said the UK had a “colossal” opportunity in clean energy but needed to “get on the front foot”.

“My frustration is, there are easy answers out there which do not cost money,” he added, highlighting reforms such as to the planning system as one area that could make a big difference.

“Fundamentally the process doesn’t work properly — you’re looking at these huge, big infrastructure projects; we need to move faster [ . . .] short circuit the process and get everybody in the room.”

Skills shortages were another area of concern, he said. “We need to get moving on it before it becomes a massive constraint.”

The UK is legally committed to cutting its emissions to net zero by 2050, with Sunak’s government setting an interim goal of decarbonising the electricity system by 2035.

The opposition Labour party, which is ahead in the polls ahead of the general election on July 4, wants to do so by 2030. Both require a rapid increase in renewable power generation, with Labour aiming to quadruple offshore wind, triple solar power, and double onshore wind capacity.

Aurora Energy Research said in a report published in March that the UK was “well off course” for both the 2030 and 2035 targets, and power system decarbonisation would not be achieved until 2051 without a “major change of policy and market interventions”.

The 2035 target required “significant new interventions”, the consultancy added, while doing so sooner was “likely to be infeasible”.

If elected, Labour has pledged to set up a new state-owned energy company, Great British Energy, to help boost renewables by co-investing alongside the private sector.

Anderson urged it to focus on less mature technologies and areas where “the government can have the biggest difference”, adding: “If all you are is another bank, I don’t need another bank. It’s not going to change the planning process.”

He stressed that parent company Iberdrola was “incredibly supportive” of the UK, but noted the country faces competition from around the world.

“If Spain or America moves faster, then money will flow there faster,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we’re not going to spend the money in the UK.

“But I would rather spend this year, next year and the year after, than have to wait five years to get something through the planning system.”

A Conservative party spokesman said the Conservatives had taken “bold action to deliver a 500 per cent increase in renewables connected to the grid since 2010” and are “backing £100bn of investment into the energy industry”.

Labour said it was confident its plan to decarbonise the electricity grid by 2030 could be delivered, pointing to the target’s endorsement by Sir Patrick Vallance, former chief scientific adviser. Its plans would “cut bills and make our country energy independent” a spokesman added.

Financial Times

Italian energy company targets Britain for fleet of 20 mini-nukes

An Italian energy start-up is pursuing plans to build 20 mini reactors across the UK, as it seeks to capitalise on the country’s nuclear power expansion.

Newcleo is aiming to build a fleet of so-called mini-nukes on up to six sites in Britain, all of which will be situated near energy-intensive industries.

Controversially, the reactors will be powered by plutonium, a fuel not currently used in the UK partly because of its association with nuclear weapons.

The company has said it wants to build near dense population centres after the Government recently relaxed rules restricting nuclear developments to remote locations.

Newcleo said its reactors will be efficient, safe and provide cheap low-carbon power to support UK industries.

Andrew Murdoch, Newcleo’s managing director for nuclear, said: “We have started shortlisting the best locations for us, and we’re advancing some discussions.”

Referring to key industrial centres, such as Teesside, Humberside and Merseyside, he added: “The industrial clusters are a natural place to go. It’s where a lot of the energy transition opportunities are centred, so they provide a great opportunity.”

Mr Murdoch said the generating capacity of Newcleo’s reactors will be significantly less than those under construction at Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C.

However, this means they will be small enough to be built inside factories, potentially offering huge cost savings compared to giant projects such as Hinkley.

Mr Murdoch also indicated how they could be used to exploit exotic new technologies, such as the use of molten lead to transfer heat from the reactor to generate steam for power.

The current focus for Newcleo is to create a working reactor design, which will be the first step towards potentially securing regulatory approval.

If approved, Mr Murdoch said the reactors would cost around £5bn per gigawatt of generation capacity, compared to £15bn per gigawatt cost of Hinkley Point C.

The Telegraph

Flynn attacks Labour’s North Sea energy plans

The SNP’s Westminster leader has attacked Labour’s North Sea energy plans and vowed his party was committed to a “just and sustainable” future oil and gas sector.

Stephen Flynn said Labour’s proposal for a time-limited windfall tax on fossil fuel companies would result in “100,000 job losses”.

And he told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg the Tory position was to “act like oil and gas will last forever”.

Sir Keir Starmer wants to raise the windfall tax on fossil fuel firms from 75% of excess profits to 78% while also extending it to 2029.

The Conservatives last week said the proposals were “based on fantasies” but Labour said the government had not made enough progress on the transition to renewable energy.

Scottish political leaders last week went head-to-head over the future of the North Sea oil and gas industry in the first TV debate of the general election.

When it was put to Mr Flynn, speaking from Peterhead, that the SNP had softened its stance on new oil and gas licences, he said: “What we believe in is a just and sustainable transition that protects the future employment of the tens of thousands of people who live behind me.”

He added the party would create “the new net zero jobs of tomorrow” and accused Labour of plans to “scrap 100,000 jobs”.

Last week BBC Verify examined Mr Flynn’s claim, which equates to roughly the number of jobs that Scotland’s oil and gas industry supports in the wider economy.

Those figures come from an independent estimate carried out for Offshore Energies UK (OEUK), a trade association.

But BBC Verify concluded it was misleading to suggest Labour’s plans put all of those jobs at risk.

Labour has said it would not issue new oil and gas licences, and would extend the windfall tax on energy companies, which OEUK says could threaten some jobs.

But the party has pledged not to overturn existing licences and says that oil and gas would still be part of the energy mix for decades to come.

BBC

The stunning Welsh beach that’s been branded a ‘no go’ zone

On the windswept yet sun-drenched shores of Ogmore-by-Sea in the Vale of Glamorgan, a smattering of families, dog enthusiasts and campers are drawn to the beach’s allure. The golden sands stretch out before them, punctuated by rock pools and offering vistas of Porthcawl and Merthyr Mawr it’s no wonder this spot is a favourite among south Wales’ beachgoers.

Despite its undeniable charm and natural beauty, Ogmore-by-Sea has the dubious distinction of being one of the two worst beaches in Wales for water quality, with official advice against swimming here. In 2023, both Ogmore-by-Sea beach in St Brides Major and Watch Tower Bay in Barry, recognised bathing spots, were tested by Natural Resources Wales (NRW).

Out of 109 Welsh locations, these two were the only ones to receive a ‘poor’ rating due to high bacteria levels.

The problem appears to be escalating. Recent assessments have seen the water quality at Ogmore by Sea labelled as “abnormal” by NRW, attributed to elevated bacterial counts.

While the exact cause of the pollution remains unverified, Welsh Water has expressed skepticism over concerns that the Penybont treatment works might be leaking, reports Wales Online.

However, there are other potential culprits for the pollution. Four of Wales’ most prolific sewage outflows, which release everything we flush down our toilets into the river network during heavy rain, all ultimately flow into the River Ogmore and reach the sea near the stunning beach.

An outflow on the River Llynfi in Maesteg, two outflows onto the River Garw near Bryngarw, and one at Ewenny all pour into the river. In total, they discharged sewage into the river for 17,551 hours last year.

And these are just the major ones; there are numerous smaller outflows on the Ogmore and its tributaries.

As concerns were raised for swimmers’ safety, Vale of Glamorgan council advised people not to swim at either sites. The type of bacteria that was detected came predominantly from sewage and agriculture, as well as other sources.

Despite the notorious sewage discharges into the river Ogmore, Dwr Cymru Welsh Water has yet to pinpoint the exact cause of the elevated bacterial levels at Ogmore-by-Sea. Following the disclosure of abnormal bacterial levels, the company announced “no leaks or significant faults have been found” and that further probes have yielded no definitive answers.

Both NRW and Welsh Water are persisting with their investigation into the pollution incident. A recent statement from a Welsh Water spokesperson read: “Following over 1,200 work hours of detailed investigations, analysis, trial holes, CCTV inspections, and 3D scanning of pipes and tanks, no leaks or significant faults have been found at the site and associated assets and drainage connected to the site.”

“Furthermore, extensive dye testing where dye is put into the wastewater to trace it through the process and to pinpoint leaks has not identified any leaks within the pipework or tanks on site or along the sewer network connected to the site. Over 1,000 pots of dye have been used over the course of our investigation but it should be noted that this dye does not have any impact on the environment.”

“Dye has been observed leaving the discharge point from the works i.e. where treated wastewater is discharged via an outfall to river Ogmore and a faint discolouration was observed reaching the channel where the pollution incident was initially reported. This seems to be due to the incoming tide driving river water up into the channel and thus carrying over the dye and potentially silt from the riverbed. The wastewater treatment works is operating and discharging as normal and compliant with its permits.”

“Our initial identification of a potential leak on site was later established to be a ground water pipe unrelated to our treatment works or sewer network. No further evidence of a leak has been identified.”

“Our examination of the “sludge” in the channel where the pollution incident was reported is not consistent with the microbiology of our biological process at the wastewater treatment plant. Therefore, we do not have evidence to pinpoint this material back to our treatment plant. Since we cannot find a route from our assets into the channel, the source of the pollution and our investigations remain inconclusive and we will continue to work with Natural Resources Wales.”

Express

Utility Week’s weekend press round-up is a curation of articles in the national newspapers relating to the energy and water sector. The views expressed are not those of Utility Week or Faversham House.