Former Southern Water boss Matthew Wright and three other former employees are facing prosecution over allegations that they manipulated wastewater test results. A High Court ruling on 22 July cleared the way for fraud charges to be brought against the four individuals by the Environment Agency (EA) and Ofwat, the Water Services Regulation Authority.

The investigation stretches back several years, with the Environment Agency having gathered evidence over that period that the individuals allegedly conspired to defraud regulatory authorities. They are accused of creating artificial no-flow events at wastewater treatment works between 2012-17, thereby manipulating Southern Water’s own Operator Self-Monitoring (OSM) testing regime. Southern Water’s internal investigation disclosed this to the EA in 2017.

In December 2025, the EA submitted the evidence to prosecutors for review. District Judge Stephen Leake issued summonses to the four individuals – 61-year-old former chief executive Matthew Wright, 58-year-old Philip Barker, 65-year-old Clive Massey, and 64-year-old Mark Gregory – to face charges of defrauding Southern Water’s OSM regime. Wright challenged the decision, arguing that the EA lacked the authority to bring the prosecution in the first place. On 22 July, however, the High Court overruled that challenge.

The case will now be brought against the four individuals at Medway Magistrates’ Court. It is expected to be escalated to a Crown Court hearing, where Wright and the other defendants will enter their pleas. Wright’s solicitor has stated that his client denies all wrongdoing and fully cooperated with the EA’s investigation, suggesting that a not-guilty plea is likely. Should the case progress further, it could ultimately be heard in a full Crown Court trial before a jury. The alleged conspirators could face up to 10 years in prison for conspiracy to defraud.

This is not the first time Southern Water or its employees have faced regulatory action. In the Hastings area in particular, the company has been at the centre of public controversy over incidents such as a major pipe burst that discharged wastewater and flooded nearby beach huts in Bulverhythe. That incident occurred only weeks after a £90m fine was imposed on the company for previous infractions involving the discharge of raw sewage off the coasts of Hampshire, Kent and West Sussex.

Local MP, Helena Dollimore, who has campaigned for more stringent regulation and scrutiny of Southern Water’s operational decisions, says: “I’m furious to hear that Southern Water’s former bosses stand accused of rigging wastewater testing results. Environmental regulations aren’t optional. Allegedly fiddling the figures to disguise how much sewage they were pumping into our sea is an insult to coastal communities like ours. If found guilty, the water bosses must face the full force of the law. This case lays bare how broken the water industry is. The Government has already ramped up regulation so this can’t happen again. But now it’s time to go further and take water out of the hands of bosses who think they can cheat the system.”

This case marks a potentially significant turning point in water company regulation. While Southern Water has previously absorbed fines for operational breaches such as illegal sewage dumping – a practice that some in the House of Lords have argued is effectively built into its business model – this prosecution carries a different weight. If the alleged conspirators are found guilty and imprisoned, the company would face reputational liability that they would struggle to withstand.

See also Features on page 8 for the views of a sea swimmer.

Change at the top

Hastings Borough Council has appointed an interim Chief Executive on a part-time job-share basis. Robert Cottrill will share the role with Lewes District and Eastbourne Borough councils.

The appointment is for an ‘initial’ six-month period, and Mr Cotterill will continue as the chief executive of the other councils, dividing his time between each authority. HBC has recently also been sharing “a limited amount of officer capacity” with Lewes and Eastbourne. A spokesperson for HBC said “This new arrangement further strengthens our partnership with colleagues in Lewes and Eastbourne and enables the council to fully consider options for a permanent chief executive appointment.”

Mystery still surrounds the departure of HBC’s last Chief Executive, Jane Hartnell, who “stepped down from her post by mutual agreement” at the end of October. The council issued a brief press release at the time helpfully stating “there will be no further comments made”. 

Water Compensation 

Hastings MP Helena Dollimore has called on David Black, the Chief Executive of water regulator OFWAT, for an urgent decision on compensation for 30,000 local residents who lost supplies for up to five days in May. 

Ms Dollimore told him “Southern Water have tried to wriggle out of their legal duties citing exceptional circumstances… six months on from this water outage I would be grateful for OFWAT to rule whether compensation is due in this incident.”

The MP questioned Mr Black at the Environment Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee on 26 November and in a follow-up letter sdaid: “As evidenced by the planning application ref RR/2006/3499 that refers to a need to replace ‘existing outworn raw water pipeline’, it appears that Southern Water knew as far back as 2007 that the water pipeline concerned needed replacing. Therefore, it is hard to see how they can claim exceptional circumstances.” 

Easy Money

Hastings Borough Council is inviting applications for grants from the latest iteration of the Household Support Fund – a £421 million government programme with a cat’s cradle of strings attached. Households who can demonstrate they are finding it difficult to pay for the cost of food, energy and water can apply as long as they are over 18, are Hastings residents, and have less that £6,000 in savings. Furthermore, they must be receiving Housing Benefit, Council Tax Reduction and/or Universal Credit with Housing Costs, and must not be eligible to receive the winter fuel payment. They cannot have received grants from the previous round of funding that ended in September. The council says the fund will close on 31 March 2025 or when the money has been allocated “whichever comes first”. And anyone subject to ‘immigration control’ is exclucded. Furthermore, you can only apply online.

hastings.gov.uk/benefits/hsfund

PAUL MCLAUGHLIN

In the week when Southern Water unveiled “ambitious, multi-million pound investment plans” to upgrade water infrastructure and quality across Hastings, Moody’s, the global rating agency, downgraded the privatised water company’s credit rating to “junk”, citing a “history of material operational and financial underperformance”, pushing the heavily indebted utility to the verge of default. 

The two announcements highlight the contrasting views of Southern Water. On one side, a company that consistently promises significant service improvements, while on the other, the all-too-familiar reality of poor service delivery and financial fragility.

Southern Water is controlled by the Australian-based Macquarie Asset Management. It is among the UK’s most indebted water companies, having accrued debts of more than £6bn since it was privatised debt-free in 1989. On the other hand its CEO, Lawrence Gosden, draws an annual salary of close to half a million pounds, topped up with a bonus of £183,000, which with other benefits and pension contributions saw him pocket over £700,000 last year.

Meanwhile its disastrous performance in Hastings over recent years has been catalogued regularly in HIP: two major floods of the town centre; continual sewage discharges into the sea, as well as into people’s homes and gardens, and water outages leaving thousands of residents having to rely on bottled water for several days at a time.

Resilience

A £40m “resilience case” has been put to Ofwat, the water regulator. The plan aims to improve service levels in all three key areas of recent default: water cleanliness and sewage; flooding; and water outages. The proposals include improvements to water supply works at Beauport and Brede, refurbishment of reservoir pumps and valves at the Darwell site, and upgrades to the main water supply pipe which connects it to Brede. They will also include a new reservoir at Newgate and installation of 25km of new water mains and associated pressure management technology in the Hastings area, along with the refurbishment of 500 metres of critical sewers, with planned upgrades of Rock-a-Nore and Galley Hill pumping stations, plus actions to better manage surface water challenges at Alexandra Park to lessen risk of flooding. There are to be ongoing works to improve bathing water quality with accelerated investment plans to improve storm overflow performance in Bexhill and Hastings.

PUBLIC MEETING

The company held a public meeting in Muriel Matters House last Monday (11 November), attended by Southern Water’s senior management team, to unveil these plans. Making the key presentation, Mr Gosden promised that they would “transform water quality over the coming decades”. He said his company has been working closely with the local community, Hastings Borough Council and other partners, in putting together “this important action plan”, adding that he was “confident that it will live up to our customers’ expectations.”

But councillors who turned up to the presentation were far from placated. Former Council Leader Paul Barnett dismissed the investment plan as nothing more than a “shopping list of what was affordable and realistic”, failing to address “what investment Hastings actually needs.”  Cllr Helen Kay expressed her concerns that much of the work to improve storm overflows was not due to begin until 2027. Cllr Sorrell Marlow-Eastwood suggested that Southern Water’s priority to install smart meters was for the benefit of the company, while deflecting resources away from making improvement to the wider infrastructure of the town. 

Councillors from across the party political spectrum criticised the company for failing to offer adequate compensation to citizens who have been negatively impacted. Cllr John Cannan captured the mood of the meeting when he said there was a widespread lack of trust, with the company repeatedly claiming to have fixed major problems whilst walking away with its fingers crossed hoping the solutions work.

Southern Water’s plans for Hastings are in fact dependent on Ofwat approving its 2025-30 business plan, which proposes that a £7.8bn investment be funded by a sharp rise in bills for consumers. A decision by the water regulator is due on 19 December, and its approval is by no means guaranteed. The Labour Government has made it clear it wants Ofwat to be much tougher with the water companies than it has been in previous years. 

HIP recently reported that in 2007 Southern Water obtained planning permission from Rother District Council to replace the mains supply pipeline on the basis that it was “outworn”. Eight years later, in 2015, the company had taken no action, but informed Rother in a letter that it intended to “progress” a revised replacement scheme as the existing pipeline was “approaching the end of its operational life”.

In fact, Southern Water never applied to the regulator, Ofwat, for approval of a scheme to re-lay an alternative pipe. Questioned about this, a company spokesperson said: “On review, it was not necessary to do so, due to the pressure being reduced in the pipe instead…These decisions are made regularly by utility companies”.

By 2023, Southern Water had changed its tune, submitting a record £7.8bn business plan to Ofwat to deliver: “Major improvements in water resilience, wastewater treatment, and customer service, as well as enhancement and protection of our precious environment.” The company describes its desired programme as the “greatest ever single investment in the environment”, representing over £3,500 expenditure per household and creating an estimated 5,000 jobs across the region. It further claims that shareholders have invested £1.6bn since 2021, whilst having received no dividend since 2017. But is also reported as seeking the highest percentage increase in water bills by any water company in England and Wales – 91% over the next five years. 

Southern Water’s chief customer officer, Katy Taylor, said last week:

“We share everyone’s concerns about rising payments in the face of a cost-of-living crisis. We have been able to keep bills low, with the average combined water and wastewater bill increasing by only £2 in the past 10 years in nominal terms. We agree with our customers that we must now charge more so we can bring our bills in line with inflation, rising costs and, more importantly, so we can invest more to meet the expectations of our customers, and protect and enhance our environment.” She went on to stress that discounts would be extended to needy households. “For those that need support, we already provide a 45% bill discount to over 120,000 customers today and estimate that number will rise to around 200,000 by 2030.”

Southern Water’s five-year investment programme and its proposals to increase customer charges were submitted to Ofwat last October, alongside those of other water companies. The regulator is tasked with ensuring they meet the twin targets of making environmental improvements while also delivering value for money for consumers. 

Ofwat’s “draft determination” was due on 12 June but has been delayed until after the general election on 4 July – an indication of the potential political impact. Assessment of Southern Water’s needs may in any event have been revised following the bursting of the mains water pipeline from Darwell and consequent cut-off of supply to Hastings and St Leonards at the beginning of last month. 

A Defra (Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) spokesperson said last week: “Investment in the water industry has not kept pace with where it needs to be. This needs to change, and we want to see ambitious plans from water companies that meet our targets and deliver for customers… This process will resume post-election to ensure customers do not pay for water companies’ poor performance.”

£1m Goodwill Pay-out Won’t Reach Home Customers

Southern Water has announced a £1million ‘goodwill fund’ to compensate businesses and community groups in Hastings which suffered the double whammy of flooding and loss of water supply over the past 16 months.

But, although the company acknowledged the twin calamities also took their toll on residential households, no compensation is being offered to them. While there is a statutory scheme that seems, at first sight, to require a £30 compensation payment to be made to each household for every 12 hours of water loss, a burst of a strategic water main is an event beyond the remit of the relevant regulations, according to the company spokesperson. The company insists that the offer to businesses and community groups is a goodwill gesture, not a legal requirement.

At the first full meeting since last month’s election, Hastings Borough Council leader Julia Hilton said: “All councillors reacted with anger and dismay at the news that Southern Water are not intending to compensate individual residents for the loss of water over the Bank Holiday period…We need to put pressure on [the company] to ensure that the households that most deserve compensation are directly reimbursed.” She did not elaborate on how this would be achieved. Meanwhile, ‘goodwill’ money is being allocated as follows:

• £500,000 for community 
• projects
• £380,000 to support businesses
• £120,000 for “local festivals and events”

Tim McMahon, Southern Water’s Director of Water, who led the company’s response to the burst major water main earlier this month, said: “We recognise that the services we provide have not met all of the expectations of our customers in St Leonards and Hastings in recent months – and we are very sorry… We accept that we need to put things right so far as the community and businesses in Hastings and St Leonards are concerned, and therefore want to give something back as a meaningful goodwill gesture.” 

A spokesperson for the company said last week that eligible businesses are being contacted directly. Some of the worst affected hospitality firms (about 15% of the total) will receive £1,500 each; the rest are being paid £150 each.

The company was “still in discussion” with Hastings Borough Council about setting up or working with a community foundation which would make allocations to community groups. The “local festivals and events” would include the Jack-in-the-Green charity and local education providers. 

There is real public outrage about the sewage pollution in our seas and rivers. Last Saturday (18 May) communities around the UK came together in a national day of protest to send a message to water companies that enough is enough. Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) were amongst them.

Most sewage systems in the UK are combined, carrying both sewage and surface water run-off. During periods of intense rainfall, sewer capacity can become overloaded. When it does, treatment plants cannot cope with the increased volume of wastewater, and so are bypassed. and an untreated mix of sewage and water is released via combined sewer overflows (CSOs).

Although the sewage is heavily diluted, the effluent is untreated and can pose a serious health risk.

Last year these CSOs discharged 824 times a day around the UK. Originally intended to release during periods of heavy rainfall, many of these discharges were when there was no rainfall at all, and it has become clear that water companies are using them far beyond their original use.

Along the East Sussex coastline, the company responsible is Southern Water. Jemima Gibbons, protest lead for SAS (Hastings), says that it has failed for 30 years or more to invest in an infrastructure which needs maintenance that it’s just not providing.

At the time of writing, Hastings alone has had 139 sewage alerts so far this year; St Leonards tops that with 181. Add to those the 150 alerts that Bexhill has suffered and you get a whopping 470 along our little stretch of coastline alone. The story continues around the rivers and coastline of the UK.

Over the next month, Ofwat, the financial regulators of the water industry, will be reviewing the water companies’ business plans for the next five years. SAS want them to end sewage pollution in popular bathing spots by 2030.

And, with a general election looming, Jemima argues that this is the perfect time to shout about it.

On the day I wrote this, I went to meet my friend Will for a swim below the seafront at St Leonards. We got up to our knees and I can only describe the feeling as like standing in soup. We looked at each other and he said to me “I don’t think I fancy this.” I had to agree, and returned home to a hot shower. 

Of course, two weeks ago I wouldn’t have been able to do this, as ours was one of the 30,000 or so homes left completely without water for days. Who was responsible for that? Southern Water, again.

There is something about the impunity with which England’s water companies are allowed to dump sewage into our rivers and seas: it seems emblematic of the corruption and gross inequality that pervade all corners of our crumbling public realm. The town hall meeting clearly laid out how this is allowed to happen. It was explained that although the companies are monopolies and we have no choice as to who provides our water, they are protected legally and financially. Meanwhile, consumers and the environment have no protection at all. 

The meeting was attended by people who refuse to pay for phantom wastewater services or are considering refusal. Also attending were those who have attempted to seek redress in the courts – or are in the process of doing so – and those whose lives have been made a misery by trying to get a byzantine and dysfunctional Southern Water to deal with the sewage that rises in their home every time Hastings floods. All were united by a sense of frustration and outrage. 

A stunning 70% of England’s water companies are owned by foreign investors, including investment firms, banks, hedge funds, foreign governments, and businesses based in tax havens. Since privatisation in 1989, these owners have extracted money from the water companies for their shareholders while loading them with debt. Southern Water owes £5.7 billion; if you are a Southern Water customer, 27% of your bill goes on servicing that debt. 

So how are the water companies able to borrow so much money? At the meeting on 15 March, Julie Bygraves laid out how the price we pay for water is determined by a regulator. Amongst other things, the regulated asset base not only guarantees profits for water companies, but also allows them to charge borrowing costs to their customers. In addition, as collateral for borrowing, the companies use their physical assets, which we paid for before they received them debt-free at privatisation – and continue to pay for. Both of these mechanisms incentivise the borrowing of increasing sums of money, the charges for which are loaded onto customers’ bills.

In 1991, two years after the privatisation of water companies, the Water Industries Act overrode common law in a clause that protects water companies from individual legal challenges. There are now only two bodies, OFWAT and the Environment Agency (EA) that can prosecute water companies for not carrying out their legal duties. This includes the safe and legal disposal of wastewater: i.e. not dumping it into rivers and seas.

As pointed out in the meeting, these bodies have the powers to regulate and enforce the water companies; they just don’t do it. So, is this a case of ‘failure by design’? The revolving doors between the water companies and the regulating bodies would seem to suggest this. However, there is another, even more pernicious, reason. In a letter to OFWAT last month, the Chair of the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs Committee wrote that it was “concerned” that enforcing regulations and issuing fines against “consistently failing entities” would risk causing their financial collapse, so OFWAT should therefore not use “the full extent of its powers.” In other words, indebted water companies should be allowed to break the law to stave off their probably inevitable collapse.

There is, however, one area where the consumer does have some leverage: Southern Water has 2.6 million customers. Many of them are paying by direct debit, which allows the water company to keep those accounts in surplus, often to the tune of hundreds of pounds. This creates a huge pool of ‘borrowed’ money to help keep them afloat, on which, of course, they are paying no interest. So, if Southern Water’s banditry is making you furious, cancel that direct debit now.

For more information go to sussexbylines.co.uk and search Money down the drain and Water nationalisation is the best option.

A regular column to update readers on the damaging effects of the current management of water in Hastings, surrounding areas (and nationally) and what people are doing about it. If you have any information, please contact community@hastingsindependentpress.co.uk marked Clean Water Watch.   

WORDS OR DEEDS FROM SOUTHERN WATER 

As if to underline the PR nature of Southern Water’s drop-in at the Stade, Saturday 12 October, Your Water Matters, it was quickly followed by a yet another massive leak in Bulverthythe. Cllr Maya Evans posted on Facebook, 18 October: “There’s currently several inches of sewage and an overwhelming stench.” Clean Water Action Group posted in their WhatsApp group: “86 tankers have been ordered. And more rain is forecast tonight.”

More rain indeed, and on 27 October there was a deluge, flooding the centre of town for the second time this year (see front page report). To add insult to injury, the report into January’s flood has only just been published – completed in the absence of significant documentation that Southern Water was unable to locate. Sounds familiar? (You can read Paul McLaughlin’s analysis of the report on page 2)

HOW DID WE GET HERE

On page 16, an opinion piece, Water Woes, provides a useful context for unacceptable situation in the water industry, particularly focussing on where all the money goes. 

OLD ROAR GILL

Miriam Lengliné of Sewage Contamination Group (SCG) recently reported the sad death of Rusty the dog who had entered the Gill back in May – around the time or the spill which led to the start of community action. Although we cannot be sure of the cause, Miriam posted: “For months we’ve been saying that there might have been dead dogs for years, months, without their owners knowing what happened!” And apparently clear warning signs for dog owners and others have still not been placed in the Gill. 

In the meantime, there have been reports of a more activity around Old Roar Gill (before the flooding). Because of leaks? To avoid leaks? Who knows? 

CLEAN WATER ACTION GROUP CROWDFUNDS FOR TESTING

In the absence of appropriate action by those in charge, CWAG is raising money to do it themselves As they say on the Crowdfunder: “The Environment Agency test the water in the ‘bathing season’ which is from 15th May to the end of September, but no one is monitoring the pollution in the months of October to April! People are still in the water, swimming, walking their dogs, paddleboarding, Kayaking and letting their children paddle year-round.” 

To donate, go to crowdfunder.co.uk/p/test-the-water-clean-water-action-pollution-watch.

NEWS FROM OFWAT

The Guardian (26 October) reports that Ofwat has “raised a red flag” over the financial health of Southern Water (along with three other water companies) citing growing anger over “the industry’s record on services and pollution”. The regulator highlights Southern Water as a company needing to “shore up their long-term finances”. The privatised model is clearly broken.

CORRECTION

In Clean Water Watch 3 (20 September), we quoted an article by Julie Bygraves in Sussex Bylines, Money down the drain? The article explains how the Regulated Asset Base (RAB) model, used for setting utility prices via our bills, encourages water authorities to acquire a “steaming pile of debt”. We mistakenly reported that this model allows water companies to use their ‘public assets’ as collateral; in fact it is their ‘regulated assets’ they use as collateral. (What had been public assets were handed over to the water companies on privatisation.)

They are the new refuseniks: individuals who have stopped paying private water companies for ‘wastewater services’ in protest at persistent sewage spills. They argue that while the water companies rely on bullying tactics to deter consumer action, non-payment is justified and could force real change…

Katy Weitz (left) and Olivia Cavanagh (right).

Olivia Cavanagh is not your typical rule breaker.

As an immigration advisor she has always been a law-abiding citizen, paying all her bills and generally doing things by the book. All that changed one day in summer of 2021 when she went swimming at Rock-a-Nore in Hastings and was surrounded by a layer of brown scum.

“It was a summer of a lot of sewage being dumped in the sea,” she said. “Obviously living in Hastings, it’s right on my doorstep, I’m very aware of the pollution. I like swimming in the sea, we share a beach hut, we don’t go away on holiday as such – this is what we do.

“But there were days when it was really hot, the sea was calm but the red flags were up and we couldn’t go in the sea. That brown scum was horrible.”

Enough was enough. Olivia resolved to keep paying Southern Water for her incoming water services but refused to pay for the wastewater charges on her bill, a charge levied to dispose ‘responsibly’ of wastewater.

“Why would I pay for a service I’m not receiving? It’s unjust,” she said. “Moreover, if I do pay I would be complicit in something that’s damaging the environment.”

When debt collection agency Orbit rang to chase payment, Olivia explained her decision and the company offered £50 off the £80 bill as a ‘goodwill gesture’. Olivia agreed on the condition that untreated sewage spills wouldn’t happen again.

One of the obligations that water companies must fulfil is preventing the discharge of raw sewage into rivers and coastal waters. Any such release through storm overflows is supposed to take place only after exceptional weather, and according to conditions in the permits issued by the Environmental Agency.

However, during an eight-day period in November last year Southern Water released sewage for more than 3,700 hours at 83 bathing sites, described by environmental groups as ‘environmental vandalism’. During the whole of 2022 it dumped sewage 16,000 times.

In October Southern Water was found by regulator OFWAT to be one of the worst performing water companies in the country for sewage discharges and fined £28.3 million for this failure. The regulator said the company wasn’t just letting down customers but also the environment, and that poor performance had become ‘the norm’. 

In a preliminary investigation, the Environment Agency also recorded “widespread and serious non-compliance with regulations” and launched a two-year criminal investigation. Last July the head of the agency suggested repeat offenders should face jail.

Olivia has not paid a wastewater charge on her water bill for two years, despite a number of ‘chasing’ letters and calls from debt collection agencies UK Search and Orbit. 

“We’re being conned, being made to pay for a service that doesn’t exist,” she said. “I’ve had some sympathetic conversations with Southern Water.  However, one woman at UK Search told me that regardless of whether the wastewater is put into the sea, I had received the service. She later apologised when I pointed out that from an environmental stance this was an unacceptable thing to say. It is not about the money, I want Southern Water to stop ruining our environment.

“How can we watch David Attenborough telling us that our planet is close to dying and accept this? I wish more people would join this protest. The more of us that do it, the more they’ll be forced to sit up and pay attention.”

It appears Bob Geldof agrees. The Live Aid founder condemned the ‘vile harm’ caused by Southern Water. He told a public meeting in Faversham, Kent, last November that fines represented “a drop in the ocean” to the company, urging customers: “Don’t pay your water bills to Southern Water. They can f*** off.”

Indeed, escalating fines appears to have had little impact and a report by Fideres, which investigates corporate wrongdoing, argued that the 11 water companies in England and Wales had exploited their dominant positions as regulated monopolies to provide “excessively low-quality service.”

In Money Down the Drain, Raw Sewage on the Beach published last November, Chris Pine wrote: “We estimate that households purchasing UK wastewater services may have incurred damages since 2016 of approximately £163 million as a result of the water companies potentially abusing their dominant position.

“We also estimate that the same companies may have charged households more than £1.1 billion for sewage removal services, when in fact they have not safely removed that sewage, instead they may have simply discharged it into the country’s rivers and onto its beaches.”

He argued that consumers had grounds for a class action complaint to the Competition Appeals Tribunal to obtain redress for this infringement of competition law.

Katy Colley, a campsite owner from Brede East Sussex, agrees that there appears to be little consequence to the companies for these damaging spills. She too is refusing to pay for wastewater services to Southern Water.

“It can be scary doing something like this, especially when people tell you it will affect your credit rating,” she said. “But I’m not convinced they have a leg to stand on. We’ve had all the nasty-looking letters and several calls but I’ve managed to tell them to back off while our complaint is ongoing.

“We contacted the Consumer Council of Water (CCW) who agreed with us that there are strong grounds for contesting the charges. At the very least Southern Water were ordered by OFWAT to compensate customers last year but we have yet to see this reflected in our bills. Why is this?

“We have been advised by the CCW to take our complaint further, which we are doing. But I am also considering the possibility of group litigation, as suggested by Fideres.

“If things were this bad for any other business, we would have the option to walk away and take our custom elsewhere. We don’t have that option with water – these companies are monopolies and I believe they are abusing that position.”

Hastings resident, artist, and communications manager Laura Coppin is also taking a firm stance on this matter. She told Southern Water she would not pay for their “ongoing mismanagement and repeated sewage spills into the ocean”.

She wrote: “You are destroying the environment and poisoning both people and nature, and the fact you’re charging us for the displeasure of it is absolutely scandalous.”

Laura is a long term environmental protester and has been involved in the environmental protests around clean seas for a couple of years, but shared that matters came to a head at the start of the year when she realized how much worse everything was getting.

Pictured: Laura Coppin.

“In terms of action they’ve done so little,” she said. “Spillages keep happening, and our seas and rivers are in an incredibly poor state directly because of water companies’ negligence. Environment Agency data shows sewage entered our waterways 825 times a day in 2022. I’ve decided to withhold my wastewater charge this year because Southern Water and other water companies are not delivering on any part of what the charges are supposed to represent.

“I wanted to go swimming last year but every time I tried there was an alert. If it’s not safe enough for us to swim in, can you imagine what that means for those living in it? This destruction is affecting untold numbers of creatures, people’s health, and the environment itself. This is a shared world and I’m not paying for them to destroy it.”

For Laura, relief can only come through a return to public ownership.

“If anything is a necessity it should never be in private hands,” she said. “The moment that something that is not only a basic human right but a right of all living things is put into a for-profit system the whole thing is broken. The more of us that speak up in this way, the less they can brush us off. The more we work together, the sooner this will be dealt with and there will be less loss of life all round.”

If you are thinking about a ‘Bill Strike’ on your wastewater charges, then here are some steps which might be useful:

• Consider paying for the incoming water services part of your bill only. Your bill should clearly state how much is being charged for incoming and how much for outgoing.
• Make a complaint in writing to your water company – email is fine – about why you are refusing to pay. The company must respond within 10 working days.
• If you are not satisfied with the response, tell the company you intend to take the matter further to the Consumer Council of Water (CCW). It is a simple form: www.ccw.org.uk/advice-and-support/make-a-complaint
• Advise the company they are not to chase you for payment while your complaint is outstanding.
• Depending on the response from CCW you can also move your complaint to the Environment Agency, your local council and the Water Redress Scheme (WATRS).
• Stay in touch with your water provider. Ask for your account to be put on hold while your complaint is outstanding.
• Write to your MP.

Find out if there’s a local action group near you – you aren’t alone.