Two of the largest British water companies, Thames Water and Anglian Water, face more than 50 criminal surveys between them as part of a repression of wastewater dumping, the government said.
Public services were subject to the essentials of a record survey of 81 on water companies between the general elections of last July and March 2025, according to new data.
New powers to recover the costs of environmental agency surveys will be used, which means that “the polluter will pay,” sources told The Guardian.
This could be very expensive for the Thames, the strongly indebted supplier who has exceeded the cards of active surveys at 31 years and will probably have to finance the majority of them.
The largest British water company, which recently came in the five weeks after the round of the funds, tried to persuade the water regulator to leave it on hundreds of millions of pounds of fines. Significant additional costs could risk doing so for special administration, a form of nationalization.
Thames Water rushes to find a buyer ready to inject money because he vacillates on the verge of temporary nationalization. The company, which has 16 million customers and 8,000 employees, works less than 20 billion pounds of debt.
The American investment capital KKR, which hopes to acquire a participation of 4 billion pounds Sterling, is the last option for Thames Water as it rushes to find a buyer by the end of June. Anglian Water has faced 22 investigations since last July.
Sources of the Environment Department have said that they had ordered the Environment Agency to take robust measures and hoped to see the leaders of the courts in the coming months. After these surveys, the water bosses could be imprisoned for two years and the water companies inflicted a fine on hundreds of millions of pounds.
Steve Reed, the environment secretary, said: “Not only did the conservatives supervised record levels of wastewater spill, but they also shamelessly tried to cover it.
“And the reform did not even mention the wastewater in their manifesto; Nigel Farage simply does not care about our beautiful rivers, lakes and seas.
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“This Labor Government cleans the disorder of the Tories that the Conservatives have left with a record number of criminal surveys on waters -by -revolution societies – which could see bosses behind bars.”
It is a criminal offense for a water company to break the rules of its environmental license. This may include the release of excessive pollution in a river or not monitor water quality. The Environment Agency has hired 380 additional regulatory employees to carry out inspections and other application activities.
James Wallace, the director general of River Action, said: “Criminal surveys are welcome, but regulators need urgent access to the courts and if the next expenditure examination reduces the funding of the Environment Agency, how will it maintain the level of application necessary to hold the polluters-from water companies to factory farms?
Thames Water, Anglian Water and Water Uk, the Industry organization, were contacted for comments.
