Water firms promise greater transparency, benefiting millions

We made transparency the default: Water companies that provide sewage services now proactively report on sewage spills, empowering communities with the facts.

All 12 water companies providing sewage services that we wrote to have committed to regular reporting on sewage discharges, marking a significant shift towards environmental transparency. This change means that millions of people across the UK now have easier access to vital information about pollution in their local rivers, lakes, and coastal waters.

Over the last year we have called on water companies to proactively publish information relating to start and stop times of sewage discharges.

We have been supporting water companies to improve their transparency by providing regulatory certainty in publicising our decisions and sharing good practice - this includes introducing an “open by default” culture.

We are holding these companies accountable if they do not comply with the law and attempt to keep the public in the dark about sewage pollution.

To date, this includes six decision notices ordering disclosure of information, and our first ever practice recommendation for failing to properly handle requests for important environmental information from the public.

We’ll continue supporting the sector by engaging in EIR forums and monitoring new complaints to ensure water companies follow through on their commitments. Transparency must keep improving and where we see regression, we won’t hesitate to take further action.