Therese has today set out the next stage of the government’s plan to tackle sewage pollution by enshrining a target to improve sewage overflows into law.
In August 2022 the government set out its Storm Overflows plan which requires the largest infrastructure programme in water company history to tackle sewage overflows – an estimated £56bn. The plan prioritises investments in priority sites including protected habitats and bathing waters. In April, £1.6 billion of investment was brought forward to speed up vital water infrastructure projects, cutting thousands of overflow spills each year.
Ministers also reconfirmed that they will be lifting the cap on civil penalties for water and sewerage companies, raising them up to unlimited penalties so that polluters pay for their impact on the environment, with funds now being reinvested into further improving rivers and water bodies. Today’s announcement will place the improvement targets in the Storm Overflows Reduction Plan on a statutory footing, making them legally binding.
Therese has also written to water companies requiring a plan on every overflow on her desk by the end of June. This builds on work to introduce mandatory monitoring, which is up from just 7% in 2010 to 100% by the end of this year. Thanks to this monitoring, regulators are undertaking the largest investigation into water companies in their history related to illegal sewage dumping, building on record fines of £141m secured since 2015.
Therese said: “It is a Conservative government that will deliver 100 percent monitoring of storm overflows. We’ve already brought forward stronger regulations, tougher enforcement and the largest water infrastructure programme in history – an expected £56 billion investment – and we will make fines unlimited so that the polluter always pays.”
