Ban shareholder dividends for failing water companies- Norfolk MP
It comes after Anglian Water was fined nearly £63 million over failures linked to sewage spills.
One of the county's MPs is calling for shareholder dividends to be ban- for under-performing utility companies.
It comes after Ofwat ordered Anglian Water to pay over 62 million pounds, due to sewage treatment issues.
Where will the money go?
-£5.8m will go towards creating an entirely new Community Fund which will support local environmental and social causes, says Anglian Water.
-£57m to tackle more complex issues within at least 8 high priority catchments, as well as addressing more specific place-based challenges.
This will include installing sustainable drainage solutions (SuDS) to combat drainage and flooding issues, upgrading community-owned assets that contribute to flooding, and other local initiatives.
"It's just not good enough"
Steff Aquarone represents North Norfolk in Parliament:
"I recognise that improving the situation is going to take time and money. I'm pleased by the amount of money that's being committed to tackling this. But there's clearly a hell of a lot of work that still needs to be done. These breaches keep happening and the fines coming. It's just not good enough".
"We have got a lot of sewage infrastructure in rural north Norfolk build in the 1970s. It was only really created for the capacity and weather at the time. The £83 million that I've been able to secure is going towards upgrading all different parts of the waste treatment works.".
What has Anglian Water said:
Mark Thurston, CEO for Anglian Water, commented:
“We understand the need to rebuild trust with customers and that aspects of our performance need to improve to do that.
"Reducing pollutions and spills is our number one operational focus, and we have both the investment and the partners in place to deliver on those promises as part of our £11bn business plan over the next five years.
"In the meantime, we have proposed this redress package, recognising the need to invest in the communities and environments most impacted.
“It will take time and investment to achieve a significant reduction in spills, but we are making good progress.
"By 2030 we have allocated a dedicated £1bn for measures such as storm tanks, upgraded monitoring, nature-based solutions like wetlands, and sustainable drainage solutions to halve the number of spills.
“Equally, it will take time to upgrade the vast network of assets we manage; we have hundreds of treatment works, more than 100,000 kilometres of pipes and sewers underground, many hundreds of water storage points and storm tanks – all of these need to be part of a significant capital programme to maintain and renew what is there.
"This is what will be set out in our plans - to ensure we can make the improvements that are best for the environment and delivers on our promises to customers.”