Thames, Southern, Yorkshire and South West Water bosses are stripped of bonuses after their firms get rock-bottom one-star pollution ratings

Four water companies recorded 2,991 pollution incidents in 2025 — 84 of them classified as serious — as a landmark first joint report by all four water regulators found the industry's overall environmental rating fell to just 16 stars out of a possible 36. Environment Agency chair Alan Lovell said the results "expose the scale of underperformance across the sector" despite £5bn invested over five years. Environment Secretary Dame Angela Eagle said the case for root-and-branch reform was clear, and South West Water was rated poorly for the 15th consecutive year.

Severn Trent was the ONLY company to achieve the top four-star rating out of England's nine water and sewerage firms.

Of 2,254 planned environmental improvement actions, 142 were not completed on time, exposing chronic delivery failures.

'People are sick of excuses,' regulators warned as 99.97% of drinking water tests passed — but wastewater performance remained unacceptably dire.