Anglian Water fined £1.2 million after failures leads to river pollution in two Northampton villages

Anglian Water has been slapped with fines totalling more than £1.2 million after a catalogue of system and maintenance failures led to pollution in two villages near Northampton.

The company had set a warning sensor in the River Tove in Hartwell to the wrong address, delaying treatment to sewage entering the waterway as a result of a blocked overflow in June 2019.

Alarms were raised in good time and Anglian Water attended — but went to the wrong address missing the opportunity to minimise the pollution.

A tanker cleared ‘unflushables,’ such as cotton buds and sanitary pads, from a 10-metre stretch of stream but traces of sewage fungus present in the stream suggested the pollution had been occurring for several days.

Biological surveys showed dead aquatic invertebrates for around a mile and as far down as the next village, Ashton.

Earlier this year, Anglian Water confirmed it would pay out a £92 million dividend to its shareowners, despite recently hiking customers' bills and growing anger over river pollution.

Environment Agency prosecutors claimed the company’s list of process failures included reporting delays, faulty screening and a general breakdown in planning and maintenance, all of which caused damaging blockages and pollution in Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire and Cambridgeshire.

District Judge Nick Watson fined Anglian Water £871,000 at Loughborough Magistrates’ Court saying the company had “dragged its feet” over infrastructure improvements, adding that the failures appeared to be: “An endemic part of the culture of the organisation at the time of the offences”.

He said: “Water companies have a huge responsibility to proactively manage the resources they have been given a responsibility for.

“Profit must not be at the cost of the environment.”

All the incidents took place at Anglian Water sites across a five-month spell, between May and September 2019.

One involved the discharge of poorly treated sewage into the River Lark, near Ely, which was originally fitted with a screen to prevent blockages in the process.

This was removed in 2018 but, according to the Environment Agency, increased cleaning had not taken place and no steps taken to reduce the risk of blockages caused by the removal of the screen.

In a separate case, Anglian Water was fined £350,000 by Cambridge magistrates after a pumped sewer burst for a sixth time.

The court found that the company had been too slow in putting in place potential mitigation measures.

Anglian Water pleaded guilty to causing poisonous, noxious, or polluting matter to enter inland freshwaters without an environmental permit, and were told to pay £65,000 in legal costs by the two courts.

A spokesman for the company said: “We take our duty of care to the environment incredibly seriously and deeply regret any negative impact when things go wrong.

“We work tirelessly to protect and enhance the environment, so it is particularly distressing when incidents like this occur.

“We are investing £800 million to help protect and improve the environment and are determined to achieve our zero pollutions goal.”