DIRTY MONEY

Chief executives of water firms get £15million in park and perks | Drama reveals 10-year probe into contamination and girl's E.coli death

- GRAHAM HISCOTT

Business and Consumer Editor BOSSES of under-fire water firms raked in more than £15million in pay and perks last year despite surges in serious pollution and soaring customer bills.

Suppliers also declared £900million in dividends, analysis reveals.

It comes ahead of a hard-hitting Channel 4 drama about the sewage scandal.

Starting tomorrow, Dirty Business tells the true story of the Preen family, whose eight-year-old daughter Heather died after contracting e-coli 0157 on a Devon beach in 1999.

Her family claim it was the result of coming into contact with raw sewage.

South West Water denies culpability.

Heather's mum, Julie, 58, says of the factual drama, which has been compared to ITV's bombshell series Mr Bates vs The Post Office: "I always thought, for all those years, that Heather had been forgotten.

"This has fired me up and made me realise there are things to be done, things that can happen."

Dirty Business, a three-parter starring Jason Watkins and David Thewlis, is also critical of the Environment Agency and Thames Water, the nation's biggest supplier, which is drowning in debt.

Despite the company slumping to a £1.6billion loss, its boss Chris Weston was paid more than £1m in the last financial year.

He took over in January 2024 and got a £195,000 bonus for his first three months alone.

Meanwhile, customers' bills across the country are rocketing to fund decades of underinvestment, causing record leakages and raw sewage in rivers and seas.