Anglian Water to payout £62.8m for wastewater failures

(Sharecast News) - UK utility Anglian Water has been ordered to pay out a £62.8m by the industry regulator for failures in managing its wastewater treatment works and network. Ofwat said failures by the company led to "excessive spills from storm overflows" after an investigation found that the water firm failed to run, maintain and upgrade its wastewater operations adequately to ensure they could cope with the flows of sewage and wastewater coming to them.

It added that Anglian failed to have adequate processes and oversight from senior management and its board to ensure its operations were performing properly and would meet legal requirements.

Anglian will create a £5.8m community fund to support projects delivering environmental and social benefits for local communities, focusing on the water environment. It will also invest £57m into developing excess flow management plans to adequately deal with wastewater flows in at least eight catchments in its region to provide local environmental improvements.

"Our investigation has found failures in how Anglian Water has operated and maintained its sewage works and networks, which has resulted in excessive spills from storm overflows. This is a serious breach and is unacceptable," said Lynn Parker, Ofwat's senior director for enforcement.

"We understand that the public wants to see transformative change. That is why we are prioritising this sector-wide investigation which is holding wastewater companies to account for identified failures.

Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com