More than 200 tankers of raw sewage were driven to a Surrey town and left there for six months, causing a “nightmare” for residents after all of Thames Water’s 360 treatment plants reached critical capacity.

Thames Water has told councillors in Surrey it had had no choice. Either they moved the sewage to storage tanks in Camberley, emptied it into rivers causing massive pollution, or left it in tankers on the roadside which could have exploded, causing a major national incident.

Yuk! – Owl

Chris Caulfield www.getsurrey.co.uk

More than 200 tankers of human poo were shipped in to Camberley from across Surrey, Hampshire and London, saving Thames Water millions in potential pollution fines and its sewage trucks from “exploding”.

This comes at the expense of 11,600 residents who got nothing in return, save for a summer of vile stench, a committee heard.

Chiefs from the utility firm were called in to Surrey Heath Borough Council to answer questions as to how 12,000 cubic metres of raw untreated sewage and sludge was left to fester in the heat – forcing thousands of people to stay inside with their windows closed during the summer.

The committee also challenged water bosses over pledges they thought had been made on compensation to Camberley residents who “bore the cost” so the company, which recorded a total revenue of £2.3 billion last year, could profit.

Councillors said they were led to believe Thames Water would contribute towards a playground as a goodwill gesture to children who had been forced to stay indoors, with committee chair, Councillor Rob Lee, going as far as to say Thames Water should offer “a year’s free water bills” to those affected.

Thames Water’s representatives said they never made a firm commitment to contribute to any scheme. The company claims they have made organisational improvements since.

The committee heard that Thames Water could not have made any offers of goodwill as the people attending the meeting did not have the power to do so.

In the end, Thames Water’s leadership offered to let staff have a charity day to support building a local project that never got off the ground.

The sewage started being shipped into Camberley Sewage Works in February this year and by March the two 6,000 cubic metre tanks were “completely full”.

At the time, the committee heard, odour suppression was in place but it wasn’t 24/7 and didn’t cover the entire tank, which also suffered from maintenance issues.

By June, the council began to receive formal complaints. Initially the council was told the problem was due to blockages and drainage.

It took until the middle of July for Thames Water to publicly admit it was a holding tank with a “large quantity of sewage sludge within it”. It would remain untreated until the beginning of August with the tanks finally cleared and cleaned of waste on September 25.

Speaking to the committee was operations director James Bentley.

He apologised “unreservedly” and said: “We didn’t get everything right in that process and we’re not here to pretend that we did.” He said the firm should have put in odour controls in place and communicated with residents much sooner.

He said: “We had been experiencing a very extreme sludge event…where our system across the whole of the Thames Water estate, was overloaded.

“Not only with liquid sludge but also with cake which is the solid material when we process sludge and remove a chunk of the water from it.

“That system was overloaded on the liquid and solid side.” Thames Water staff told the meeting it left them with no choice but to put liquid sludge into reserve tanks.

Mr Bentley said: “It has to go somewhere, it cant just be discarded into the environment. We have to store it until we are able to treat it.

His colleague added: “If we didn’t move the sludge we’d have pollution trucks potentially exploding, and that’s why we’d done it.”

Cllr Rob Lee said: “You act in the shareholders best interest, you don’t intend to cause a substantial sewage leak unless its a commercially managed one, you don’t intend to cause a Heath and Safety Executive incident, so what you did was you moved the sludge to Camberley.

“So the people that bore the cost of that were the residents of Camberley, substantially through the summer, through their loss of enjoyment and I think it’s understanding the loss position those residents bring.

“They are your customers, they pay you money, and they missed out substantially on the enjoyment of their summers. Raw sewage smell around your home is pretty different to that in a treatment plant as that is your job.

“You need to consider a gesture of goodwill to residents. A starting point is a year’s complimentary water bill.

“It clearly saved Thames Water in material terms millions if not tens of millions of pounds, so I think we need to start exploring that avenue.”

The two hour meeting concluded with the Thursday, November 28 executive partnerships select committee agreeing to formally ask for a “decision maker who has the ability to sign off on compensation” to appear before the next meeting, in March.

The council’s executive team will also write to regulators Ofwat, MP Michael Gove and the environment secretary to ask them to consider the wider sense of pollution and whether Thames Water diverted the risk of fines by increasing the air pollution in Camberley.

Water companies were sold with no debt when they were privatised in 1989. In fact, they were given a £1.5 billion green dowry by the Government. Since then, they have taken on borrowing of £60.6 billion, diverting income from customer bills to paying dividends and interest payments. – Owl

Sandra Laville www.theguardian.com 

Thames Water has apologised to a House of Commons committee for causing confusion by describing a £500m shareholder loan as equity.

One MP called the complex financial structure of Thames Water an “absolute shambles”, as senior executives were pulled in to explain themselves.

Thames Water’s chair, Sir Adrian Montague, said the company was facing a “seminal moment” as Ofwat for the first time suggested special adminstration for the company was an outcome the regulator would not shirk from.

Ian Byrne, a Labour MP and member of the environment, food and rural affairs committee, said: “69% of the nation wants the water industry nationalised. I think after listening to this, it will be 100% … the whole structure is an absolute shambles.”

He added that the situation reminded him of Carillion, the collapsed construction company.

Thames Water, which provides water to about 25% of the population in England, is struggling with debts of £18bn and is seeking an injection of £1.5bn of cash from shareholders to turn itself around.

The company was recalled to give evidence to MPs on Tuesday after describing part of the shareholder money – £500m – as equity rather than debt.

Montague, the chair of Thames Water and its parent company, Kemble Water Limited, said he was sorry if the management had caused “confusion” when it described the shareholder contribution as equity when it was a convertible loan charging 8% interest.

But he said he stood by the phrase. “In July we described the shareholder contribution of £500m as equity. That’s a description that has been fiercely challenged. We stand by what we said. If we were not clear enough in unpacking the different elements of that … I’m sorry if we caused any confusion,” he said.

Montague told MPs Kemble relied upon dividends paid by Thames Water to secure its future. Ofwat is investigating dividends of £37.5m paid to the parent company in the six months to 30 September to see whether Thames Water has breached the conditions of its licence.

Montague said: “It is not obligatory for Thames Water to pay these dividends … Thames Water has paid dividends to put Kemble in a position where it can service its debt. If Kemble was allowed to go into default, our concern from Thames’s perspective is that that would derail the possibility of us delivering further equity from shareholders.”

Barry Gardiner, a Labour MP, said although promises of change had been made, its holding company was behaving the same as Macquarie. Macquarie, the Australian bank that previously owned Thames Water, has been heavily criticised for building huge debts at Thames Water to pay dividends to shareholders.

“It’s the bill payer that ends up paying for whatever trouble the holding company gets itself into, in exactly the same way as Macquarie did,” said Gardiner.

Thames Water is seeking a 40% increase in customer bills to pay for new investment in its treatment works, pipes and sewage outflows, as it faces huge problems over rising pollution incidents, infrastructure failings and continued raw sewage discharges into the environment.

Executives admitted on Tuesday that if Ofwat rejected its business plan and the bill rises it has asked for, the company would be left in huge difficulties.

Given refusing the plan was likely to lead to Thames Water collapsing, something that Ofwat would not contemplate, Gardiner told the Ofwat chief executive, David Black: “They have got you by the short and curlies, haven’t they?”

But Black told MPs the regulator would act if it had to and put the company into administration. “We have never seen a water company fail but that remains a possibility,” said Black. “If we have to take steps that lead to the failure of the parent company then we are prepared to do so.”

Local councils will no longer be forced to set aside greenfield land to meet their future housing needs, under a new planning system to be announced by ministers.

Oliver Wright www.thetimes.co.uk

In a move that industry sources have claimed would be “disastrous”, Michael Gove will allow local authorities to reduce the number of houses to be built if development would significantly alter the character of their areas or impinge on the green belt.

Councils will also be given an exemption from building new homes on prime agricultural land.

The reforms, which could be announced as soon as Thursday, are designed to appease rebel Conservative MPs who have warned that opposition to housebuilding in their constituencies will cost them their seats at the next election.

But critics have warned that they amount to a “nimby’s charter” that will lead to a continuing shortage of housing in the areas of greatest need.

Under the previous system local authorities were required to set aside and designate enough land to meet their future housing needs for five years in a local plan even if the proposals were opposed by local residents.

Councils that failed to do so risked having new developments forced upon them by the planning inspectorate under a “presumption in favour of sustainable development”.

But under the changes councils will be able to set local plans with fewer homes if they can demonstrate to the planning inspectorate that meeting the target would damage the character of an existing area or require building on the green belt.

Ministers argue that the changes will, in the long run, allow more homes to be built because local councils will be incentivised to produce realistic plans for their areas that have broad democratic consent.

However, developers fear that the rules will be exploited by opponents of new housing to block sites from being built on, significantly reducing land supply in areas where demand is greatest.

“This will be disastrous,” said one senior industry source. “Under the old system there were strong incentives for councils to produce realistic plans to meet their future housing needs. Under this system there will be next to nothing to stop councils effectively imposing a moratorium on building the homes that we need.”

As part of the package of measures due to be announced by the government, Gove is expected to argue that the government will prioritise brownfield and higher-density development in inner-city areas. He will also make it harder for planning committees of local councillors to block developments that have been approved in principle by local planning officers.

A government source said: “We are reforming the planning system to put local plan-making at its heart. This will allow communities to take back control of housing in their area, while supporting much-needed development in brownfield and inner-city sites.

“We are on track to see a million new homes completed this parliament and are accelerating our plans in Cambridge, central London and the heart of Leeds.”

The government will also point to measures in the autumn statement designed to speed up the planning process. Under the new system local authorities will be able to charge an additional fee for accelerated planning decisions but would be forced to refund all planning charges if it failed to meet faster timelines.

Government sources said there had been more than 26,000 responses to a consultation on the proposed changes, which will form part of a new national policy planning framework (NPPF).

It follows weeks of negotiations with rebel Tory backbenchers, who last year forced ministers into a U-turn on plans for mandatory housing targets.

They said that the new plan would strike the “right balance” between the rights of existing residents with concerns about new development and the need to increase housing supply.

Labour is expected to condemn the proposals. “This is formal confirmation that this government prioritises party management over doing what it takes to get Britain building again,” said a Labour source.

The former Northern Ireland secretary Theresa Villiers, who led the backbench rebellion against the existing planning rules, said she hoped the new plan would respect “local democratic input”.

“The government has a longstanding commitment to ensure the voice of local communities continues to be heard in relation to what is built in their neighbourhood,” she said.

“We all recognise how important it is to build the homes we need. It is possible to do that whilst still respecting local democratic input, for example by focusing on high-density delivery in urban city centre sites. Once it is published, I’m sure the new NPPF will be carefully scrutinised by all sides of the debate.”

The Environment Agency failed to visit 90 per cent of toxic water spills last year, including more than 60 per cent of the most serious incidents, i can reveal.

Lucie Heath inews.co.uk

Freedom of Information data obtained by the charity WildFish, and shared with i, shows there has been a significant drop off in in-person inspections of water pollution since the Covid-19 pandemic, despite an increase in the total number of incidents being investigated by the watchdog.

Inspectors were rarely turning up in person to investigate incidents such as sewage discharges and pollution run-off from farms and motorways into England’s waterways.

Campaigners and politicians told i the environmental regulator was “toothless” and blamed the Government for overseeing the decline of Britain’s rivers, lakes and coastal waters.

They accused the Environment Agency of “pretending pollution isn’t there” and called for a complete overhaul of the regulatory process for water.

It comes as BBC Panorama claimed that one water company United Utilities wrongly downgraded the severity of more than 60 of its own pollution incidents last year in a move that saw the cases wiped from its official records.

The downgrades were reportedly signed off by the Environment Agency without inspectors attending any of the incidents. United Utilities denies the allegations.

Now i can reveal the extent to which the Environment Agency has scaled back in-person inspections of water pollution across the country since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Pollution incidents are divided into four categories from category one (most serious) to category four (little to no impact). Incidents are given an initial categorisation when reported, but these can be changed after inspection.

In 2022, Environment Agency inspectors attended just 2,060 (10.7 per cent) of the water pollution incidents reported to them that were initially classified in categories one to three.

This included 161 visits (35 per cent) to category one incidents, 861 (23 per cent) category two visits and 1,038 (7 per cent) category three visits.

Unsurprisingly, the number of Environment Agency visits to water pollution incidents dropped off significantly during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the latest figures show that visits remained at this level in 2022 despite the ending of lockdowns.

In-person visits were down almost 50 per cent in 2022 compared to 2019, despite a 10 per cent increase in the number of incidents being investigated by the Environment Agency.

The figures also show that pollution spills caused by water companies were being visited at a rate below the average, with the Environment Agency visiting just 5 per cent of these cases in 2022, including 36 per cent for category one, 15 per cent for category two and three per cent for category three.

Guy Linley-Adams, Solicitor at WildFish, said: “Sadly, this just shows that the Environment Agency has continued the decline in its performance that began in the early 2000s. You can’t deal with pollution by just pretending it isn’t happening, refusing to see it.

“However, fault lies both with Agency managers, but also with politicians of both main parties, who have hamstrung the Agency with the Regulators’ Code and other such deregulatory nonsense over years, starved it of cash and refused to let it take on polluters to protect rivers, lakes and coastal waters. The very best you can say about the Agency is that it is now charged with presiding over the managed decline of the aquatic environment in England”.

It comes as water companies continue to come under scrutiny for the amount of sewage being dumped into Britain’s rivers, lakes and coastal waters, with water companies reporting over 384,000 discharges of raw sewage in 2022.

Water companies have been permitted to discharge untreated sewage into water bodies during exceptional circumstances when their pipes are at risk of becoming overwhelmed, but investigations have shown this has become common practice.

Stuart Singleton-White, head of campaigns at the Angling Trust, described the Environment Agency as “toothless”.

He said the regulation of the water sector is “completely broken” and that it was “time to sweep away the current system”.

Labour’s shadow Environment Secretary Steve Reed said the Government has “wilfully turned a blind eye to corruption at the heart of the water industry” and said his party will “strengthen regulation to make sure every single water outlet is monitored”.

Labour will table a motion in the House of Commons on Tuesday to call on the Government to give the water regulator Ofwat powers to ban the payment of bonuses to water bosses whose companies are found to cause pollution.

An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “We take our responsibility to protect the environment very seriously and will always pursue and prosecute companies that are deliberately obstructive or misleading.

“We assess and record every incident report we receive – between 70,000 and 100,000 a year. We respond to every incident and attend those where there is significant risk, and we are increasingly able to use off-site data checks and technology from a range of different monitoring sources to assess them.

“We are strengthening our regulation of the water industry by expanding our specialised workforce, increasing compliance checks and using new data and intelligence tools to inform our work. We will also soon have new powers to deliver civil penalties that are quicker and easier to enforce.”

“The new homes element of Burrington Estates is set to cease trading but the wider Burrington Estates Group, however, is unaffected, including the company’s interest in Exeter’s Winslade Park.” Complicated – Owl

South West new homes builder Burrington Estates is to cease trading after making a £14m pre-tax loss. The Exeter-headquartered company, which builds and sells houses across the West Country and Midlands, will complete the projects it is working on, sell off undeveloped sites and wind up the business.

William Telford www.devonlive.com

Directors blamed “increasingly difficult trading conditions” and an uncertain UK housing market, partly fuelled by rising interest rates. They also put the blame on the cost-of-living crisis and the war in Ukraine. The new homes element of Burrington Estates is set to cease trading but the wider Burrington Estates Group, however, is unaffected, including the company’s interest in Exeter’s Winslade Park.

David Jervis, director, said: “After looking at a range of options for the future of the business, including its ownership and markets, the directors reluctantly agreed in 2023 that the business would complete its committed project to its recognised high standard and would thereafter cease trading and commence an orderly wind down of the business. The directors would like to thank all its customers, supply chain, staff and funders for their continued support during this period.”

Burrington Estates will become the fourth major regional construction firm to cease operating in the past two years. Midas Group Ltd, Henry W Pollard and Sons Ltd and Brady Construction Services Ltd have all gone under as the construction industry continues to be hit by economic difficulties.

Burrington Estates, which employed about 70 people, was set up in 2011 by Mark Edworthy and Paul Scantlebury and has completed more than 600 homes in the region, including current schemes in Exeter, Tiverton and Bude. It purchased The Ship, Plymouth’s former home of The Herald and Western Morning News, in 2015, much of which is currently being offered for let as small business space.

It also developed landmark business sites at Sky Park and Sky Park II, in Exeter; West Park, in Wellington; Roundswell, in Barnstaple; Oak Tree, in Newton Abbot; and Plymouth’s Eurotech Park. These were transferred to ONYX Business Parks Ltd, when subsidiary Burrington Business Parks rebranded in May 2023, and appear to be unaffected by Burrington Estates’ winding up.

In 2021, Burrington Estates embarked on ambitious growth plans boosted by a £15.5m investment from main shareholder BGF Group Plc to expand its residential portfolio .In January 2022 Burrington Estates secured a £28m funding package from Paragon Development Finance to support its Winslade Park development in Exeter.

In August last year, Mr Edworthy and Mr Scantlebury stepped down and Mr Jervis became group managing director, having joined in 2019 to head the new Midlands division. Burrington Estates’ highest paid director was paid £279,333 and a pension contribution of £16,000 in 2021.22.

Plymouth’s Eurotech House and the former Good Companions site in the city centre have been put on sale. Both are still being advertised, the former for £850,000.

Newly published accounts for the 18 months from January 2021 to June 2022 show Burrington Estates sold 36 properties and had a turnover of £29,522. But it made an operating loss of £9,031,000 and a pre-tax loss of £14,345,000.

Burrington Estates Group, a holding company, is dependent on cash generated by more than 30 subsidiary companies and funding from ultimate parent company BFG, which has now recognised it won’t be repaid in full and reserved the right to amend its support. Mr Jervis said the company was hit by “increasingly difficult trading conditions”.

In his strategic report, he highlighted “increased uncertainty in the UK housing market” driven by interest rate hikes and a fall in house prices “triggered by economic uncertainty and reductions in attractive mortgage deals for buyers”. He also blamed supply chain problems and delays caused by the planning system.

He continued: “In addition, the cost of finance for the group rose significantly due to the significant and numerous increases in UK commercial lending rates.” He said this was key as the company was dependent on debt to finance its acquisition and build programme.

He said that as a result the company was unlikely to be able to settle or refinance all its loans from shareholders and would seek a “managed closure” of the business. The accounts showed about £73m was owed to creditors, most of which was loans and borrowings, and was in breach of loan covenants and had to therefore replay its main lender immediately.