Water firms face fines of £168m over sewage spills

THE crisis at Thames Water deepened yesterday when it was hitwith £104million fine for a catalogue of sewage failings.

- Steph Spyro

Ofwat also issued penalties of £47million to Yorkshire Water and £17million to Northumbrian Water.

Thames, facing the record fine, has been struggling with £14.7billion debts. It said last month it only had enough cash to fund operations until the end of next May.

The regulator can fine firms as much as 10% of annual sales. In the case of Thames, the biggest water supplier, the proposed fine is 9% which Ofwat chief executive David Black said "reflects the severity of the offences".

He added: "Ofwat has uncovered a catalogue of failure by Thames Water, Yorkshire Water and Northumbrian Water in how they ran their sewage works and this resulted in excessive spills from storm overflows.