Severn Trent has awarded its chief executive £3.2m, despite the company’s sewage spills rising by a third in 2023.

Euan O’Byrne Mulligan inews.co.uk (Extract)

Liv Garfield saw her pay package increase by 2 per cent, according to the FTSE 100-listed company’s annual report released on Tuesday.

She received a salary of £794,000, with her bonus increasing from £359,000 in 2022 to £584,000. The remainder of her package included pension payments and long-term share awards.

It comes despite Severn Trent, which supplies 4.6 million households and businesses in England, being responsible for more than 60,000 sewage spills last year – a rise of a third on 2022.

In February, the utility was also fined £2m by the Environment Agency for allowing more than 260 million litres of sewage – the equivalent of 10 Olympic-sized swimming pools – to be discharged into the River Trent between November 2019 and February 2020.

Ms Garfield’s latest pay rise confirms her position as the highest-paid boss in the water industry, having received more than £16m in the past five years.

Severn Trent said the increase was justified by the company’s strong financial performance, as revenues rose 8pc last year to £2.34bn, with profits jumping 20pc to £201m.

The company has proposed increasing bills by 36 per cent to £546 a year per household excluding inflation by 2030.

A spokesman for the company said: “Delivering for our customers, our communities and the environment underpins our approach to remuneration. Just under three quarters of executive pay is directly linked to performance, with stretching targets in place.”

Accounts published on Monday revealed that the boss of South West Water also received a pay increase of £300,000, just weeks after a parasite outbreak in Devon left residents unable to drink their water supply.

Last week, i launched its manifesto to save Britain’s waterways, which includes a call for regulators to be granted additional powers to restrict dividends and bonuses for underperforming companies.

All political parties have been invited to support the campaign. The Liberal Democrats became the first to do so on Thursday, followed by the Green Party of England and Wales on Monday.

The Conservatives and Labour have previously discussed restricting water company bonuses in cases of severe sewage pollution but the parties are yet to back i’s manifesto.