Thames Water delivering a temporary water supply from a tanker, August 2022
ENVIRONMENTAL charity River Action filed a legal challenge today against the government’s lack of preparation for temporary nationalisation of floundering water companies.
The group argues that Environment Secretary Steve Reed has acted unlawfully by failing to develop or publish policy on when he would put failing firms into special administration.
Campaigners pointed to Thames Water as a clear candidate for special administration, citing repeated breaches of its statutory and licence obligations.
Thames was revealed earlier this month to be the worst polluter of all the water firms in Britain, accounting for 44 per cent of incidents classified as “serious.”
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River Action head of legal Emma Dearnaley said: “The government has the power but won’t use it, or even explain when it might trigger this process.
“Apparently, the government has no policy at all. That’s a fundamental failure of transparency and accountability — and it’s unlawful.”
She added: “We need water companies that serve customers and protect our rivers, not prioritise financial returns to investors.
The videos I prefer are definitely under 20 minutes duration, under 10 is better still. If you’ve made a longer one, make a condensed shorter version too?
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.
A tanker pumps out excess sewage from the Lightlands Lane sewage pumping station in Cookham, Berskhire
CALLS to nationalise the water sector intensified yesterday after it emerged that serious pollution incidents in England jumped by 60 per cent last year.
The Environment Agency reported 75 major incidents that fell under categories one and two, which can severely harm the environment and human health.
Serious incidents doubled from 14 to 33 at crisis-hit Thames Water, the watchdog found.
Southern Water was responsible for 15 of the incidents and Yorkshire Water for 13.
Pollution incidents across all categories had increased by 29 per cent, with 2,801 recorded last year.
Thames Water recorded the most incidents again at 523, followed by Anglian Water (482) and United Utilities (376).
The rise was attributed to underinvestment in new infrastructure, poor asset maintenance and reduced resilience due to the impacts of climate change.
We Own It founder Cat Hobbs said the figures “are the latest indicator of a water sector in total chaos.
“The roots of this chaos extend all the way back to when Thatcher privatised water in the 1980s — effectively flogging the family silver for a quick buck.
“Since then, private shareholders have stuffed their pockets with gold, amassing £80 billion in payouts.
“They’ve killed our rivers and let the infrastructure crumble, while bill-payers pick up the tab.
“Recent research shows that the cost of public ownership could be close to zero. This solution could also save the public £3-5bn a year, making publicly owned water a source of income for the Treasury.”
An open letter to the Government, signed by a coalition of environmental and civil society groups
Dear Keir Starmer, Prime Minister and Steve Reed, Secretary of State for Environment and Rural Affairs,
We demand an urgent end to the sewage scandal through systemic transformation of the water industry – public and environmental good must be put before private profit.
A year ago, you began your premiership with a clear commitment to deliver on your election mandate to end the sewage pollution crisis and clean up our waters. On Monday, the Independent Water Commission is set to publish its final recommendations but it will fall fatally short if it fails to confront the root cause of the crisis: a system built towards serving private profit cannot deliver an end to sewage pollution.
Your election mandate has given you a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix our broken water system. But this will take more than incremental change—it demands a decisive break from the failed model that has deluged our coastlines, rivers and lakes with sewage.
The need for a full system overhaul is painfully clear. Since privatisation in 1990, water companies have paid shareholders over £74 billion in dividends—while burdening the system with £69 billion in debt. Despite repeated promises to invest, shareholders have actually withdrawn more than they have put in, meanwhile essential infrastructure has been left to crumble. In 2024 alone, untreated sewage was dumped 565,383 times across England and Wales. It’s a 35-year tale of broken pipes, broken promises and a fundamentally broken system.
The consequences of inaction are shocking. Coastal economies and communities are being hammered. Rivers declared ecologically dead. Pollution poisoning our wildlife. Thousands of people are falling ill after swimming in raw sewage. Yet water bills will keep rising – to service debt, to fund dividends – and so it is the public who will continue to pay the price.
Enough is enough. You must act now. Rebuild a system that people can be proud of, not angry about. A system that serves the public and protects nature – not private profit. Anything less would be a betrayal of the promise you made to the electorate.
Yours,
Surfers Against Sewage
River Action
Greenpeace UK
WWF UK
GMB Union
Compass
Zero Hour
Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland
Last year, when UN Secretary General António Guterres said PR firms were “acting as enablers to planetary destruction” by working for fossil fuel clients, he didn’t name WPP specifically. But they were the main company he was talking about. The advertising behemoth has more clients in the oil industry than any rival.
Guterres, being a diplomat, uses mild language. In my opinion, WPP is the world’s leading spin doctor for planetary death.
And so I was surprised when I checked in on who David Lammy had appointed to the Foreign Office supervisory board, to see WPP’s recent UK President Karen Blackett is now one of the four non-executive directors – as I revealed last week over on Democracy for Sale.
The supervisory board provides “strategic direction,” and “oversight” for the department. Adverts for the roles say they are “significant contributors to both the operational and strategic leadership of the department. Their primary objective is to bring independent advice, support and challenge… helping to shape the department’s work.”
In February, lawyers for campaign group Badvertising and others submitted a complaint about WPP to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, arguing it was breaching its international guidelines on corporate responsibility. Its work for a number of fossil fuel and pollution intensive corporations, the lawyers said, “directly increases demand for carbon intensive products and undermines global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions”.
Why is that an organisation whose recently departed UK boss you’d want overseeing British foreign policy? Blackett spent 29 years working for WPP – three decades as a spin doctor at an advertising behemoth which represents some of the most destructive corporations on the planet. How can her advice possibly be independent? How can the perspectives and viewpoints of clients not have imprinted on her?
As the Badvertising website says, “for every rights-abusing, climate-wrecking corporation, there’s an advertising agency working hard to clean up their public image. And no one does this better than the world’s biggest ad firm, WPP”.
Last month, climate activists occupied WPP’s London headquarters, demanding it cut ties with clients including Shell, BP, Total, ExxonMobil, Drax and Saudi Aramco.
UK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party’s support for and complicity in Israel’s genocide of Gaza.Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London. (Photo: Handout/Chris J. Ratcliffe for Greenpeace via Getty Images)Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Thames Water delivering a temporary water supply from a tanker, August 2022
