Environment Agency (EA) staff have downgraded thousands of serious pollution incidents by water companies in England without visiting to investigate, data unearthed by freedom of information (FoI) requests suggests.<\/p>\n
The figures were obtained by Robert Forrester, a whistleblower who left the agency in January and has spent nine years shining a light on the state of the water industry. His identity was revealed in the Channel 4 docudrama Dirty Business<\/a> this week, and he has vowed to carry on fighting to expose the truth.<\/p>\n The data shows 2,778 serious pollution incidents by water companies were reported in 2024. Of these, 2,735 (98%) were downgraded to minor incidents by officials, FoI data shows. Officers only attended 496 of these before downgrading the pollution event; the rest were deemed minor events on water company evidence alone, the data suggests.<\/p>\n This represents nearly a 1,500% increase on the 174 downgrades in 2021, of which 60 were attended.<\/p>\n Out of the initial 2,778 serious incidents that were provided by water companies, the EA officially recorded only 75 serious incidents, which it said was a rise of 60% from 2023.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a significant increase in the serious incidents received by the agency but a huge increase in them being downgraded with no attendance by an officer,\u201d said Forrester. \u201cThe key thing is that water companies are still controlling our attendance. As an officer with 21 years\u2019 experience I saw it change from 12 to 15 years ago when we would actually get out on site, and we were encouraged to protect, investigate and enforce.\u201d<\/p>\n For the 2025-26 financial year, the EA expects to receive approximately \u00a3149m in income from water companies<\/a> through permit charges and a new enforcement levy, out of a \u00a3189m total budget for water regulation.<\/p>\n But Forrester said this model of water companies paying for the budget of agency enforcers created a conflict of interest.<\/p>\n \u201cThe regulator is in too close a relationship with the water companies. They are being funded from the money the water companies pay for their permits and as a result the regulator appears to be loosening its regulatory hold over them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Forrester left the agency in January after several years during which he was put under suspension, and given restricted duties, following what he believes were suspicions that he was blowing the whistle.<\/p>\n In 2021, while Forrester was on a 12-month suspension, the then chief executive of the agency, James Bevan, warned all staff against speaking to the media<\/a>.<\/p>\n His warning was condemned by Andrew Pepper-Parsons, the head of policy at Protect, a UK whistleblowing charity, who said at the time: \u201cRegulators have an important role to play in encouraging whistleblowing to staff and the sector it regulates, and it is not in the spirit of promoting speaking up to warn staff against speaking to the media.\u201d<\/p>\n Forrester first started to expose what he saw as a cosy relationship between the industry and the regulator in 2017, when a report on the toxicity of sewage sludge was kept from public scrutiny.<\/p>\n