{"id":17287,"date":"2025-07-23T06:38:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T06:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/17287\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T06:38:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T06:38:10","slug":"southern-water-responsible-for-huge-increase-in-pollution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/17287\/","title":{"rendered":"Southern Water responsible for huge increase in pollution"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n New statistics published by the Environment Agency<\/a> has found the number of\u00a0pollution incidents from water companies across England rose sharply last year, with a 60 per cent increase in water pollution incidents compared with the year before.\n<\/p>\n

\n Southern Water was found to have been responsible for 15 serious pollution incidents in 2024, the second highest\u00a0offender of the nation\u2019s water companies behind Thames Water.\n<\/p>\n

\n The Environment Agency assessed all pollution incidents in 2024, with category one (major) and category two (significant) incidents being the most serious.\n<\/p>\n

\n It was also found that Southern Water was responsible for two more serious incidents than the previous year (2023), as well as an increase of 32 per cent on its total number of pollution incidents.\n<\/p>\n

\n READ MORE:\u00a0Hampshire hosepipe ban forces Fair Oak splashpad to close<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n In a statement, Simon Moody, Environment Agency area director said: \u201cSouthern Water forecast three serious pollutions in its pollution incident reduction plan last year but ended up being responsible for five times that number.\u00a0\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThey are failing to meet their own expectations let alone ours as a regulator or the public\u2019s who pay their water bills and expect good service with no environment<\/a>al harm.\u00a0\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe are pushing Southern Water hard to change. Our vastly increased inspection regime has started to identify and tackle the many problems at Southern Water sites.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe continue to hold them to account when they cause pollution or fail to address areas in urgent need of improvement.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n \"AA breakdown of the Environment Agency’s figures (Image: Newsquest) Southern Water provides essential water and wastewater services across Hampshire, supplying drinking water to more than two million customers across the south of England.\n<\/p>\n

\n READ MORE:\u00a0Southampton MPs hit out at Southern Water CEO over ‘massive payout’<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n In response to the Environment Agency\u2019s findings, John Penicud, Southern Water\u2019s managing director for wastewater, said:\u202f “Any pollution incident is completely unacceptable.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cUnder new management, Southern Water has reduced the overall number of wastewater pollutions by around 40 per cent to the end of 2024 and is on track to extend this reduction to as much as 70 per cent by the end of this year.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe know we have a long way to go to cut out pollutions completely. It’s still the case, though, that the majority of wastewater pollutions are caused by wet wipes, fats, oils and grease being flushed down toilets and sinks.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cBanning the wet wipe remains the single biggest step needed to put a stop to pollutions, which everybody wants to see.”\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n On the back of the Environment Agency\u2019s findings, Liz Jarvis, Liberal Democrat MP for Eastleigh<\/a> said: \u201cMy constituents in [[Eastleigh]] and residents across Hampshire are coping with rocketing water bills and a hosepipe ban and meanwhile Southern Water was responsible for 15 pollution incidents in 2024.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s simply not good enough and the government needs to take urgent action to address it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New statistics published by the Environment Agency has found the number of\u00a0pollution incidents from water companies across England…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-17287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}