North West water firm's £800m bill

IT'S been causing a stink for a while now, but this week the scandal of the millions of hours of sewage spilling into our rivers and seas was at the top of the political agenda as Environment Secretary Therese Coffey set out her plan to clean up our water.

- ROB PARSONS

Water companies - who released raw sewage into waterways in England for more than 1.75 million hours last year - want to fast-track £1.1bn of schemes to cut the number of spills from storm overflows by around 10,000 a year.

But the vast majority of this cash some £800m - is being put up by United Utilities (UU), the firm responsible for water and wastewater services in the North West, as it aims to reduce 8,400 spills annually. Why is this firm doing so much more than its counterparts?

A map by campaign group Surfers Against Sewage about sewage discharged into bathing waters gives part of the answer, with UU responsible for 10,020 hours of sewage discharged into bathing waters during the 2022 season, by far the biggest total of any utility firm.