Southern Water issues statement after company ordered to make improvements
Southern Water has been told to carry out more than 400 improvements, after Environment Agency inspections uncovered a range of issues across its sites.
The regulator carried out over 730 inspections of the company’s wastewater assets in 2025–2026, as part of a national programme which completed a record 10,000 checks. Of the sites inspected, 68 per cent were found to comply with their environmental permits.
An Environment Agency statement read: “Poor maintenance and not knowing where their own discharge points should be were some of the issues found during the past year of intensive Environment Agency inspections of Southern Water.
“As the Environment Agency hits its annual target to carry out 10,000 inspections of the water industry, officers in the South reveal a range of issues discovered over 730 checks of Southern Water in 2025-2026.”
Inspectors identified problems including poor maintenance, such as badly maintained screens and inadequate management of storm tanks. The most common cause of non-compliance related to discharge sampling and discharge points, with some found to be inaccessible or not clearly identified by operators.
The Environment Agency said these kinds of issues could increase the risk of pollution and indicated weaknesses in how sites are managed, even where breaches were considered relatively minor.
Dawn Theaker, water industry regulation manager, said: “Environment Agency inspectors are working very hard visiting hundreds of sites, each a key part of the drinking water and sewage systems everyone relies upon.
“These health checks find issues Southern Water needs to fix because if things go wrong, the environment suffers. We will keep returning until faults are fixed, and we’ll keep coming back to make sure everything stays that way.”
In response, Southern Water said most of the required actions relate to relatively minor breaches and pointed to improvements made since launching its turnaround plan in April 2023.
A Southern Water spokesperson said: “We continue to be open and transparent, and work closely with the Environment Agency and local stakeholders, including MPs, to meet the standards our customers and communities expect. That includes taking action whenever issues are identified.
“Pollution incidents have fallen by 30 per cent since 2023, reflecting the real progress we’re making on environmental performance. We’re investing more than £8.5 billion between 2025 and 2030 to upgrade infrastructure for customers and to protect the environment.”
The company said its performance has improved in recent years, with pollution incidents down 30 per cent, internal sewer flooding reduced by 40 per cent, drinking water quality compliance up by 40 per cent, and leakage cut by a record 18.5 per cent last year. Southern Water pointed towards a ‘set of short, sharp actions’, which ‘delivered real change by spring 2025’.
The Environment Agency said inspections are intended to act as a preventative measure, ensuring companies operate within permit conditions and addressing problems before they lead to environmental harm. Where more serious breaches are identified, cases can be escalated for further investigation, potentially leading to prosecution or other enforcement action.
Helen Wakeham, Environment Agency’s director for water said: “In our role as regulators of the water industry, we are changing how we operate - with better data, our largest ever enforcement workforce and greater powers to do our job effectively.
“Inspections are a vital preventative measure, with our teams nationally issuing over 3,000 actions to water companies, including repairing sewage works and upgrading their infrastructure.
“Together, this will drive meaningful improvements in performance, hold persistent offenders to account and ultimately create a cleaner water environment.”
The Environment Agency also said it is using data gathered from inspections to build a clearer picture of water company performance and trends in non-compliance, which will inform its future regulatory approach.
Inspections of Southern Water sites increased by 110 per cent compared to the previous year, with the regulator saying it will continue revisiting sites until required improvements are made.