Campaigner outraged at breaches by water firms

WATER firms were found to have breached their environmental permits in more than 20% of spot checks carried out by a watchdog.

- By Steph Spyro

The Environment Agency, which began recording these unexpected inspections from April last year, found 420 breaches in 2,027 probes.

Anglian Water had the highest number of violations with 105 between April 1 and December 16.

Severn Trent had 67 during the same period, followed by United Utilities with 49, Wessex Water on 44 and Northumbrian Water with 38.

Thames Water and South West Water had 30 each, Southern Water 26, Yorkshire Water 26 and Dwr Cymru Welsh Water had five.

'How many more go undetected?'

The figures brought a sharp rebuke from James Wallace, CEO of anti-pollution campaigners River Action.

"It's outrageous the EA only started recording breaches at unannounced inspections in April why wasn't this done years ago?" he said.

"The egregious scale of breaches found begs the question 'how many more go undetected?'.