Anglian Water has been ordered to pay £62.8m by the water regulator, Ofwat, over failures in managing its wastewater treatment works and network that meant it was unable to cope with sewage flows.
The regulator found that the company, which supplies water to 7 million customers across the east of England and Hartlepool, “failed to operate, maintain and upgrade its wastewater assets adequately”, leading to a breach of its legal obligations.
The “enforcement package” comes at a time of public anger over a lack of improvement in how much raw sewage is dumped by water companies, while their bosses continue to receive large bonuses. Most of the money will be spent improving Anglian’s wastewater flows, to reduce environmental damage.
Ofwat’s investigation found that Anglian did not have adequate processes or oversight by senior managers and its board to ensure that its sites were performing adequately.
The Ofwat senior director for enforcement, Lynn Parker, said: “Our investigation has found failures in how Anglian Water has operated and maintained its sewage works and networks, which has resulted in excessive spills from storm overflows. This is a serious breach and is unacceptable.”
Parker added that Anglian accepted it had “got things wrong” and was “now focusing on putting that right and taking action to come back into compliance”.
As part of the enforcement package, Anglian Water and its shareholders will be required to rectify any future breaches and ensure its sites comply in future.
The total £62.8m enforcement package for Anglian includes a £57m investment in developing and providing “excess flow management plans” to remove or improve wastewater flows in at least eight catchments in its region, to improve the local environment.
In addition, the company is required to speed up its own planned investment for dealing with reducing storm overflow discharges, where raw sewage is released into rivers and coastal waters, by providing storm tanks and screens earlier.
Anglian is also required to develop a remediation and compliance plan to ensure that all its storm overflows comply with legal requirements.
The company must create a £5.8m community fund to support projects which benefit local communities.
Anglian said in response it would accelerate planned investment to reduce spills at high-risk sites with new storage, while removing surface water and optimising its existing network, which it has already been trialling in Yaxley, near Peterborough.
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The Anglian Water chief executive, Mark Thurston, said: “We understand the need to rebuild trust with customers and that aspects of our performance need to improve to do that.”
He added: “Reducing pollutions and spills is our number one operational focus, and we have the investment and the partners in place to deliver on those promises as part of our £11bn business plan over the next five years.”
Anglian Water is one of six water companies – including Thames Water, United Utilities and Yorkshire Water – that have been banned from paying bonuses for the 2024-25 financial year to their chief executives and chief financial officers.
The Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 brought in by Labour prohibits performance-related payments to senior executives of water companies that repeatedly pollute English and Welsh waterways with sewage.
Ofwat is itself due to be abolished and replaced by a new water regulator, amid a drive by the government to “reset” a sector tarnished by scandals over sewage spills and financial mismanagement.