Hastings Green Party slams Southern Water ‘for paying no tax’

Southern Water, along with Thames Water and Yorkshire Water, failed to contribute a penny of the business tax to the Treasury’s coffers, according to an investigation by The Mail on Sunday. The three companies are said to have forked out a total of £1.4bn to service massive debts and other charges linked to their complex financial structures - resulting in the wiping out of their profits and therefore their corporation tax liabilities as the tax is only charged on companies that are in the black. Southern Water, which provides water and wastewater treatment operations in the Hastings area, made a loss of £350m on revenues of £784m last year. It has been under fire for pumping raw sewage into rivers and coastal waters.

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Julia Hilton, Green Party borough councillor for Old Hastings ward, said: “Since the massive fine imposed last year on Southern Water for multiple illegal spills of sewage, followed by the sewage spill at Bulverhythe, a week rarely goes by without reports of yet more outrageous behaviour from our privatised water companies. Now we hear that Southern Water was one of three water companies that paid no corporation tax last year due to clever financial smoke and mirrors on top of accumulations of massive amounts of debt despite being privatised free of borrowings back in the 1990s. Billions of pounds that could have been spent on upgrading our sewage infrastructure has gone into company pockets since privatisation. Water is a public good and should never have been privatised.”

She added: “Public trust has broken down in both our water companies and the regulators that are supposed to ensure our waters are kept pollution free. All around the coast and along our rivers, swimmers and surfers are creating Citizen Science projects to do their own independent water testing, sharing knowledge and challenging the long standing failure by our politicians to clean up our rivers and seas. Hastings Council needs to work with local campaigners and Southern Water to create a public forum so we can track progress to clean up our seawater and rebuild public trust.”

Southern Water has been approached for comment.

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Last August, the then newly-formed Hastings and St Leonards Clean Water Action Group held protests against Southern Water after a major sewage leak at Bulverhythe flooded beach huts and affected the beach. The area was cordoned off for days as Southern Water workers repaired the burst sewer main. The Environment Agency warned against swimming at Hastings and St Leonards beaches because of a risk of “reduced water quality due to sewage”.

In July last year, Southern Water - whose biggest shareholders include Australian fund Macquarie - was fined a record £90m for deliberately dumping sewage into the sea at 17 sites from Hampshire to Kent between 2010 and 2015.

:: Hastings Green Party is hosting a public online talk to learn from other campaigners fighting sewage pollution. It is on Tuesday, February 15 at 7pm and people can book online here