UK Private Water Companies, UK Regulators Met For Dinner At Private London Club To Discuss PR For Endless Sewage Dumping

Water company bosses and the chairs of the regulator Ofwat and the Environment Agency went for dinner at an exclusive private members’ club to discuss how to quell public anger over bill rises and sewage spills, the Guardian can reveal. Campaigners have said the private meeting is an outrageous example of “regulatory capture” as Ofwat and the Environment Agency are supposed to hold water companies to account, rather than help with their public relations.

Iain Coucher, the chair of Ofwat, and Alan Lovell, who chairs the Environment Agency, met for dinner with Gill Rider, the chair of South West Water, Christine Hodgson, who runs Severn Trent, and Keith Lough, the chair of Southern Water. Heidi Mottram, the CEO of Northumbrian Water, was also invited but did not, it is understood, attend. Emails between those who attended, revealed to the Guardian under freedom of information laws, indicate that the dinner was the third held in 2023 as part of continuing discussions about how to handle communications around sewage spills and bill rises. These issues have attracted huge public outcry because of the environmental destruction caused by the dumping of human waste in English waterways.

On this particular occasion, referred to as the “chair’s dinner” in the emails, the water bosses and government representatives met on the 25 September to eat in the opulent Segrave room, a private dining room in the Royal Automobile Club (RAC), Pall Mall. The menus for the restaurants at the RAC offer venison and wild mushroom pie for £26.75, a tasting menu at £90 a head, or a fish pie for £19.

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Another hot topic on the agenda at the dinner were the “events at Thames Water”. The beleaguered company has faced financial woes and auditors have warned that without a cash injection it could go under by April. Last year, it emerged that contingency plans for its collapse were being drawn up by the UK government, amid fears that Britain’s biggest water company would not survive because of its huge debt pile. Other water companies are thought to be facing similar, though less severe, financial pressures. Severn Trent, Northumbrian Water, Southern Water and South West Water declined to comment on the record.

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/01/watchdogs-and-water-bosses-had-dinner-at-private-london-club-to-discuss-future