Read the 2025 Water Quality Report
Our latest report reveals that sewage is being dumped into our rivers and seas on a scale that defies belief—and the people who should be stopping it are cashing in instead.
We’re calling for radical reform of the broken water industry
The UK consistently ranks as one of the worst European countries for water quality, thanks to the staggering amount of sewage pollution dumped in the blue spaces we love. The toxic behaviour of water companies, big business and government threatens the health of people and planet.
In England, privatised water companies have prioritised short-term profits over long-term investment, racking up billions in debt while paying out £74.2 billion to shareholders and continuing to dump sewage in our waters. Their infrastructure is crumbling – and so is trust. In Wales, pollution is rife and regulators have failed to act. In Scotland and Northern Ireland, denial reigns and the truth about sewage spills remains hidden.
We need a water system that ends profit for pollution, puts public health first, delivers real environmental protection – and offers fair value for every customer.
Read our latest water quality report
Our vision for clean and healthy waters
There are five key principles a new system must include to #EndSewagePollution:
1. Legal Priority to Protect Public and Environmental Health
The water companies are delivering a vital public service. Their priority must be to protect and improve public and environmental health, over making profit or returns for shareholders.
2. Democratic Decision Making
Decisions about how water is managed should be taken on a regional and local level with the input of local stakeholders including waters users, customers, local authorities, environmental groups and engineers. Crucially, these stakeholders must have real decision-making power.
3. Value for Money
Customers must get what they pay for. A new system must be regulated to attract much-needed investment from long-term low-risk lenders investing over time and getting paid back once
projects are delivered.
Investment in innovative and effective catchment scale nature-based solutions should be prioritised to help tackle the causes of sewage pollution and deliver cost-effective co-benefits for biodiversity and climate.
Regulators must ensure finances are used efficiently and debt managed sustainably.
4. Tough Independent Regulators
All regulators have a legal duty to protect public health and the environment.
Regulators must enforce the law and hold polluters to account. In particular, preventing illegal discharges occurring outside of exceptional circumstances.
They must end pollution for profit by stopping all forms of financial reward for water companies, shareholders and creditors who break the law and deliver consistently poor environmental performance.
They must be independent and sufficiently resourced to carry out the monitoring, enforcement and prosecution that will ensure full legal compliance and dramatic environmental improvement.
5. Transparency
Water companies must reveal the truth about their operations across the business and provide the public with consistent, easily understandable information to protect water users’ health.
There should be complete transparency around the funding and rewards paid out by water companies to ensure no one associated with the business can profit from pollution.
