Southern Water ordered to carry out four times as many inspections by Environment Agency – as it is revealed boss Lawrence Gosden got £183,000 bonus
SOUTHERN Water has been ordered to carry out four times as many inspections in an effort to make them clean up their act.
The increase for the firm, which serves areas of the New Forest, has been instigated by the Environment Agency in an effort to stop water being polluted.
Out of 47 incidents classed as “serious” last year 13 involved Southern Water – up from five in 2022 – and saw the company given a two-star rating out of four by the EA.
It makes Southern Water joint worst with three other companies in England in the Environmental Performance Assessment (EPA) for last year.
The news comes as it was revealed that the chief executive of Southern Water, Lawrence Gosden, was given a £183,000 bonus in 2023 which, with other benefits, boosted his wages to £764,000.
This was despite the company submitting a business plan which was criticised by the industry regulator amid plans to hike bills for customers by 73% over five years from 2025.
Southern Water’s finance chief Stuart Ledger also received a bonus of £128,000 resulting in him being paid a total of £610,000.
The EPA ratings are based on the number of pollution incidents along with how well a company reports them to the EA, and also how good they are at complying with permits designed to protect the environment.
Southern Water self-reported 69% percent of sewage outages which is 15% lower than the national average.
In February this year Southern Water was fined £330,000 after raw sewage escaped into a stream as a result of faulty equipment at a pumping station near Southampton killing almost 2,000 fish.
EA chair Alan Lovell said: “For the nation to have cleaner rivers and seas, water companies must take responsibility to understand the root cause of their problems.
“It is promising to see some companies starting to accept their responsibilities, but it is evident that the pace of improvement continues to fall short.
“Although we do tighten the standards each year to drive better performance, we have been clear that we expect all companies to achieve, and most critically sustain, better environmental performance.
“As part of this we are taking forward our biggest ever transformation in the way we regulate, recruiting up to 500 additional staff, increasing compliance checks and quadrupling the number of water company inspections by March next year.”
In a statement Southern Water said of the increased inspections: “The Environment Agency report notes a significant reduction in overall pollutions which are down 35%, amongst other signs of progress, in the face of a regulatory framework which progressively revises metrics and tightens thresholds.
“Southern Water has ambitions to go further, as repeated and reinforced in our recent Turnaround Plan. We are focused on accelerating the improvement in our operational performance across multiple areas, embedding a culture of improvement, with an ambition to reach a three-star EPA rating by 2025.
“We know that the results on serious pollutions need to be addressed, which we’re focusing on doing and we’re sorry for the impact these incidents have caused.”
John Penicud, director for wastewater operations at Southern Water said: “Despite the wettest winter on record we’ve reduced pollutions by 35% and we’ve been given a two-star EPA rating accordingly. Despite our turnaround plan demonstrating strong progress, the number of serious pollutions is unacceptable, and we accept that there is a lot more to do as we urgently work to achieve a three-star rating.
“To help us on this journey we are continuing to make improvements and innovations. One example is the introduction of 22,000 radar devices in manholes across our 45,000km sewer network which will help us proactively detect issues before they become pollutions.”
