Two water companies don't know where third of their sewer pipes are

TWO of Britain's biggest water companies have failed to map a third of their sewer pipe network, it emerged yesterday.

- Robert Kellaway and Steph Spyro

Campaigners reacted furiously to the revelation that Thames Water and Southern Water can't locate their pipes much less monitor pollution flowing from them into rivers.

They only map them as they work on them, Freedom of Information requests show.

Thames Water, which has 16million customers a quarter of the UK's population admitted more than 30% of its network isn't mapped. Southern Water, with 4.7m customers, put the figure at 40% and said the cost of mapping was "considered prohibitive".

Former pop star Feargal Sharkey, who is a passionate campaigner, pointed out that Thames Water still plan to pay its shareholders £2billion over the next 10 years.