One star rating for sewage discharges

THAMES Water has been given a one star performance rating.

This was the result of the latest Environment Agency environmental performance assessment of England’s water and sewerage companies.

The agency uses the independent comparison to provide a rating for each company from one star to four stars, to show where improvement in performance is needed.

In 2024, the nine companies collectively achieved 19 stars out of a possible 36, which is the lowest number of overall stars since its records began in 2011.

Thames Water’s rating means it is a “poor performing company”.

Earlier this year it was handed a record fine of £123million for failures with its sewage pollution control and for paying out big dividends.

It has been given up to five years to pay off as part of a payment plan.

In the agency’s report, company performance in each of the categories is given either a red, amber or green status, depending on whether it is “significantly below”, below or has achieved the target or bettered it for each metric.

The results showed that there were 470 pollution incidents from Thames Water sewerage assets last year and this received a red status.

Thames Water saw
43 sewerage pollution incidents per 10,000km of sewer, also rated as red. However, this performance was better than the sector which saw 47 sewerage incidents per 10,000km of sewer.

The company was given another red status for having 33 serious pollution incidents from its sewerage assets in 2024.

Thames Water was the “worst performing company” for self-reporting of all pollution incidents in 2024, the report said.

The company reported 75 per cent of all incidents, but this is below the sector’s performance of 85 per cent.

A Thames Water spokeswoman said the number of recorded pollution incidents were “adversely impacted” by high groundwater levels and rainfall but that it has made progress in addressing “many of the underlying causes” of its poor performance.

This includes being “more proactive” in sewer cleaning and this year it expects to achieve the target of cleaning circa 1,550km of sewers.