Southern Water told to make 400 improvements

Southern Water has been told by the Environment Agency (EA) to make more than 400 improvements to comply with its permits and prevent further action being taken.

More than 730 inspections of the company's wastewater assets were carried out in 2025-26, which found that 68% of its sites were compliant with environmental permits.

However, poor maintenance and not knowing where its own discharge points should be were some of the issues found, the EA said.

Southern Water: "We continue to be open and transparent, and work closely with the EA and local stakeholders, including MPs, to meet the standards our customers and communities expect. That includes taking action whenever issues are identified."

"Pollution incidents have fallen by 30% since 2023, reflecting the real progress we're making on environmental performance," a Southern Water spokesperson added.

"We're investing more than £8.5bn between 2025-2030 to upgrade infrastructure for customers and to protect the environment."

The EA said that general maintenance was a "significant" issue, leading to widespread problems like poorly maintained screens and inadequate management of storm tanks.

"Although many breaches in permit conditions were relatively minor, in terms of potential for pollution to occur, they are indicative of a water company's approach to managing and maintaining their operations to protect the environment," the EA added.

Dawn Theaker, water industry regulation manager for the EA, said that fixes were needed "because if things go wrong, the environment suffers".

She added that the EA would keep returning to Southern Water sites until the faults were fixed.

The EA completed 10,000 inspections nationally in 2025-26 to prevent pollution, increase compliance by water companies and drive operating behaviours to protect the environment.

It said that new infrastructure was "essential" and that it, along with Natural England, had secured water industry investment commitments of more than £22bn for the next five years to make improvements.

Southern Water serves about 4.8m customers across Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

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