Environment Agency Secures Record Environmental Commitments From Water Companies
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The Environment Agency, working closely with Natural England, has secured the largest ever commitment from water companies to clean up the environment and invest in new infrastructure since privatisation.
The Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP) sets out over 24,000 actions water companies must take over the next five years to meet their legal requirements for the environment. This series of targeted interventions represents a £22.1bn investment in the environment - four times more than was secured in the last Price Review and will deliver tangible benefits for our water system and for customers.
As part of the PR24 process the Environment Agency assessed actions proposed by water companies and, alongside Ofwat and Natural England, provided technical guidance to make sure these actions will provide direct solutions to environmental pressures and help drive nature recovery.
The agreed actions will lead to improvements in water infrastructure to secure future supply, habitats and biodiversity and drinking water quality. For example, water companies have submitted plans to establish trials to remove nitrate, restore nationally important chalk streams, and install bespoke biosecurity measures to remove invasive species.
Over the last five years, the programme has seen significant investment in Yorkshire to improve water quality by restoring moorland across the county. Reducing the peat runoff at source helps reduce the risk of failure of Drinking Water Standards and Regulations while also providing additional benefits to the environment such as improved catchment and climate change resilience, Natural Flood Management benefits, including flood risk reduction, and habitat creation as well as other water quality benefits such as sedimentation reduction.
Further improvements in Yorkshire included in the new investment period include:
protecting and enhancing of 275 rivers,
upgrading almost 200 storm overflows leading to an annual reduction of sewage spills
improvements to newly designated bathing water sites,
reducing phosphorous inputs to the environment at over 80 sewage treatment works,
installing monitors at emergency overflows sites.
Jacqui Tootill, Water Industry Regulation Manager for the Environment Agency, said:
“This investment is an important step in the right direction which will not only improve the environment but will also help stimulate development and drive economic growth for the benefit of local communities and nature.
“We will continue to work closely with Yorkshire Water to monitor progress on these commitments and ensure they deliver what has been promised. If they fail to carry out their legal obligations to the environment, we will take action.”
It is no secret that our water system needs fixing and that our rivers, lakes and seas are choked by pollution.
Customers deserve the money they pay in bills to go towards improving the service they receive, and that is why the Government will ringfence money earmarked for investment, so it can only be spent on projects like these.
We are also going further to fix our water system through the Water (Special Measures) Bill, by introducing new powers to ban the payment of bonuses for polluting water bosses and bring criminal charges against lawbreakers.
Steve Reed, Secretary of State for the Environment
Natural England provides advice and guidance where water company activity may influence protected sites ,including Special Areas of Conservation (SAC), Special Protection Areas (SPA) and Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), such as through water abstraction and discharges, and how this can be improved through the WINEP.
Marian Spain, Chief Executive of Natural England, said:
“The scale of investment in the Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP) is a positive step towards delivering sustainable outcomes for the water environment, nature recovery, biodiversity improvement and sustainable growth.
“Natural England will be working to maximise the opportunity of this significant investment, to get full value for money via integrated approaches and work with our partners including the Environment Agency, water companies and Defra to help deliver this ambitious programme.”
Richard Stuart, Director of Asset Delivery at Yorkshire Water, said:
“Over the last five years we have invested almost £650m in WINEP improvements across the region, which has helped to improve more than 600km of the region’s watercourses. Between 2025 and 2030 WINEP investment will increase to £2bn in Yorkshire and we're already planning how we deliver that so we can start on investment as soon as the five-year business period begins in April, as part of our plans to improve the water environment in Yorkshire for our customers.”
Chris Walters, Senior Director, Price Review 2024 at Ofwat said:
"We welcome the EA's publication of the WINEP programme. In December we approved a record £104bn investment package, including over £22bn for WINEP. This quadruples the investment of the last five years, providing water companies with an opportunity to turn around their environmental performance and regain customers’ trust by improving services. We will monitor companies and hold them to account for their investment programmes so that they do this."
The Environment Agency and other regulators will drive water companies to embrace state-of-the-art technologies and groundbreaking innovations when delivering the actions set out under WINEP.
These collaborative efforts are crucial to cutting pollution, managing water efficiency, and increasing resilience to climate change for the benefit of both nature and people. By doing so we and industry can stimulate development and support the Government’s objective of boosting economic growth.
The investment was secured through Ofwat’s final determinations announced in December and has been factored into upcoming changes to customer bills.