Anglian Water set to invest £50m to stop sewage spills

The new funding will support their commitment to having less than 20 spills per overflow by 2025, in line with their Get River Positive commitments and Ofwat Performance Commitments.

There will be 8,000 new sewer monitors to check flows and spot blockages early, building on the 22,000 new monitors already being installed.

The river Deben at Woodbridge (Image: Archant)

On top of this there will be additional planned preventative maintenance in 100 catchments using insights from the new sewer monitors and new teams across the east of England focussed on early response to spills.

Chairman of the River Gipping Trust Dr John Warren welcomed the investment but urged for a national long-term approach to tackling the sewage issues.

He said: “All the people who have known the river all their lives have noticed the deterioration of the wildlife and it’s not unusual to see pollution as you walk along the river.

“We need a strategy for coping with the sewage nationally, rather than a piecemeal approach everyone interested in rivers is interested in a long-term strategy.”

Suffolk County Councillor Caroline Page and Ruth Leach, co-founders of Save the Deben (Image: Ruth Leach)

Co-founder of Save the Deben Ruth Leach also welcomed the funds and said: “This will be good news for Woodbridge where we had 33 spills at the Deben Road combined sewage overflow outlet pipe emptying into the river Deben in 2022.

“This is an area where many recreational river users are on the water, including the Sea Scouts and swimmers.”

The aim is for the improvements to be delivered by April 2025.

This funding is in conjunction with the government’s Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan which is driving the largest infrastructure investment in water company history, estimated at £60 billion over the next 25 years.  

This all follows the recent ban on bonuses for water company executives where firms have committed serious criminal breaches, subject to Ofwat consultation, and the quadrupling of the Environment Agency’s regulatory capacity, enabling them to carry out 4,000 water company inspections by the end of the next financial year.  

Environment secretary Steve Barclay

Environment Secretary Steve Barclay said: “The amount of sewage being spilled into our rivers is completely unacceptable and the public rightly expects action.

“This £180 million [across the country] of accelerated investment, which will stop more than 8,000 sewage spills over the next year, is a welcome step forward as we continue to push for better performance from water companies and hold them to account.

"This money will mean more cutting-edge technology, including artificial intelligence, and more specialist staff to detect and reduce spills.   

“Today’s announcement builds on significant work by this government to protect and strengthen our waters with increased investment, stronger regulation and tougher enforcement action.”  

Last year Anglian Water only received a two star performance rating out of four by a Government agency as data showed the firm was one of two responsible for more than half the serious pollution incidents nationally.

The Environment Agency assessed the nine water suppliers in England for their environmental performance in 2022, with figures showing that Anglian Water had not shown any improvement on the previous year.

The agency pledged to take action over the incidents, ranging from warning letters to prosecutions.

Graham Verrier, the agency's area director for East Anglia, said: “We are disappointed that Anglian Water is a two star company for the second year in a row.

Anglian Water received the lowest performance ranking from the Environment Agency and was one of two firms responsible for more than half the serious pollution incidents in England in 2022 (Image: Newsquest)

“Where there is evidence of non-compliance we will not hesitate to pursue the water company and take appropriate action – as is evidenced by the conclusion of nine prosecutions against Anglian Water in the last 14 months.”