Environment Agency Report Shows 60% Increase in Serious Pollution Incidents

Today, the Environment Agency (EA) has released its pollution incident report – published every year to assess progress in the ‘trend to zero pollution incidents’ by 2025. The report revealed:

• Serious pollution incidents (categories 1&2) up 60% in 2024 from 2023.
• Three water companies responsible for 81% of serious incidents (Thames, Southern and Yorkshire Water).
• All pollution incidents (category 1-3) up 29% to 2,174 in 2024.
• 24% of water company sites breached their permits under EA inspections.

Alan Lovell, Chair of the Environment Agency said that “this report demonstrates continued systemic failure by some companies to meet their environmental targets.” The EA cited three reasons for the failures: “persistent underinvestment in new infrastructure, poor asset maintenance, and reduced resilience due to the impacts of climate change.”

This is true, but misses a key fact – this systemic failure has been allowed to happen by industry and environmental regulators, and successive governments. 

Mr Lovell goes on to say: “The water industry must act urgently to prevent pollution.”
We agree — but water companies won’t act on their own. When nearly a quarter of all water company sites breach permits it’s clear that the current regulatory regime is not working. Without enforced, tougher regulation, this crisis will continue.

“Today’s report confirms what anglers have been warning for years: our waterways are suffering from chronic neglect, corporate greed, and useless regulation. Enough is enough. The government regulators responsible for this mess – the Environment Agency and OFWAT – must finally back their words with tough action. We need urgent, enforced regulation, not more empty words leading to another year of rampart pollution.”— Jamie Cook, CEO, Angling Trust.

A Welcome Increase in Funding for Inspections

Defra’s announcement last week, which confirmed a £189 increase in water regulation spending, paid for by the water sector is more welcome news. This is a 64% increase since 2023/24 and will go some way towards the EA’s delivery of their claim to be “on track to deliver 10,000 inspections of water company assets next year,” up from 4000 last year. But this is a story of slow recovery, not the step change our rivers and coasts need as the EA still carries out fewer than it did a decade ago.

Tinkering Reforms

In recent years, we’ve seen pollution records set and exceeded year on year, whilst regulators and successive governments continue to talk of a ‘broken water system’ in need of ‘urgent reforms.’

The Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 (SAWA) and the Cunliffe Review (due for publication Monday 21st July) are the government’s flagship steps towards reform. Neither meets the scale of the challenge they claim to acknowledge.

You can read our response to the Cunliffe Review’s interim report here, which calls for the government to go further and faster. The 60% increase in serious pollution incidents is yet another nail in the water industry’s coffin. More tinkering reforms will not suffice – the health of our rivers and lakes cannot wait.