NEWS  ⁄  CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT

South West Water performance remains among worst in sector as it falls further behind targets

Regulator highlights "sustained poor performance" after serious pollution incidents nearly triple and Environment Agency condemns company in annual assessment.

South west water 

Water services regulator Ofwat has extensively criticised South West Water in its annual report on the performance of water and wastewater companies in England and Wales.

The regulator said South West Water remained among the worst performing companies in the sector as it continues its enforcement case against the company for potential failures at sewage treatment works that may have led to sewage discharges into the environment.

The company fell further behind its targets during 2021-22, the period covered by the report, after its performance worsened compared with the previous year. It failed to deliver its commitments across five measures including pollution incidents, treatment works compliance and water quality.

The regulator highlighted South West Water’s “sustained poor performance over a number of years” across all pollution incident categories, saying the company was also “significantly below target on the number of serious pollution incidents”.

It added that it urgently needs to improve its performance in this area.

The company also reported the lowest treatment works compliance levels and the highest wastewater allowance underspend in the sector as it fell behind on service improvements that it was funded to deliver. It also spent less than half its infrastructure enhancement allowance.

David Black, Ofwat CEO, said the lack of investment was “extremely disappointing, especially in light of the poor performance for customers and the environment”.

South West Water was also the only company not to achieve a decrease in per capita water consumption.

The Environment Agency’s 2021 water company performance assessment, which the regulator incorporated in its report, placed South West Water at the bottom of its league table beside Southern Water and said the two companies’ performance was “terrible across the board”.

It criticized South West Water for continuing to perform “significantly below target” on most measures, and highlighted that the company had been responsible for persistently high numbers of pollution incidents during all eleven years since the agency’s annual water company environmental performance assessments had begun.

The number of serious South West Water pollution incidents in 2021 nearly tripled compared with the previous year.

In the decade to 2020, South West Water paid £1.1 billion in dividends, while averaging £163 million per annum in pre-tax profits.

Its parent company, Pennon Group, ended 2020-21 with a £3 billion cash surplus then paid out nearly £2 billion to shareholders.

Following South West Water’s poor performance last year the regulator decided that the company would have to return just £13.3 million to its customers – less than £7.39 per person.


 is editor of Exeter Observer and a director of its publisher Exeter Observer Limited.

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SOUTH WEST WATER owner Pennon Group has increased its shareholder dividend by nearly 11% to £112 million despite making a pre-tax loss of £8.5 million and being fined £2.15 million after pleading guilty to thirteen environmental offences committed across Devon and Cornwall. CEO Susan Davy said the company, which also owns Bristol Water, had “delivered improvements in environmental performance”

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SOUTH WEST WATER owner Pennon Group has increased its shareholder dividend by nearly 11% to £112 million despite making a pre-tax loss of £8.5 million and being fined £2.15 million after pleading guilty to thirteen environmental offences committed across Devon and Cornwall. CEO Susan Davy said the company, which also owns Bristol Water, had “delivered improvements in environmental performance”

EXETER CITY COUNCIL member’s allowances and expenses came to a total of £409,000 in the year to March 2023, with council leader Phil Bialyk claiming £28,400 and receiving gifts and hospitality at Sandy Park stadium.

The city council has agreed to allow four music concerts at SANDY PARK STADIUM in June with up to 15,000 people in attendance, tickets for which have already been on sale for two months. Its planning committee heard accounts of extreme anti-social behaviour by visitors attending events at the venue as well as other adverse impacts on local residents and imposed traffic and parking, noise, litter and opening and closing time restrictions on the concerts.

An Ofsted monitoring report on DEVON COUNTY COUNCIL CHILDREN’S SERVICES, the fifth since the local authority was judged inadequate in January 2020, has found that the “quality of social work practice across Devon remains inconsistent”. Inspectors found “pockets of better practice” and “some positive changes” but said that weak management oversight, insufficient challenge and poor care planning all continue to cause problems. It also said a high turnover rate in agency social work staff, who make up more than 40% of the workforce, is having an adverse impact.

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