Water companies in the UK have been dumping ever-increasing amounts of sewage into our rivers and waterways. Now, a law suit could hit them where it hurts and cost them hundreds of millions of pounds. Law firm Leigh Day is leading a collective action accusing them of abusing their dominant position by over-charging customers.
The action hinges on the allegation that water companies knowingly failed to report the number and extent of sewage discharges and were therefore allowed to charge customers more. The first claim has been issued against Severn Trent and further claims will be issued against Thames Water, United Utilities, Anglian Water, Yorkshire Water and Northumbrian Water. Zöe Mernick-Levene , a partner at law firm Leigh Day explains the case against them which is being brought by Professor Carolyn Roberts an environmental and water consultant.
Ashley Smith from campaign group Windrush Against Sewage Pollution joins us to talk about his work and explain how mathematician Peter Hammond used AI to expose thousands of unnoticed spills.
We delve into how this data is captured, scrutinized and the fact that just 1% of it is reviewed by the environment agency. We'll probe into why water companies are being secretive about data and the crucial impact of citizen scientists in pushing the case forward. We'll also be discussing the reports from dozens of elite triathletes who say they fell ill after competing in the World Championships in Sunderland's water and the response from Northumbria Water. Listen in as we scrutinise the statement issued by the Environment Agency and DEFRA .
Brace yourself for a deep dive into the legal challenges faced by water companies for their pollution. Ashley unfolds the inception of Windrush Against Sewage Pollution and its efforts to expose the deteriorating condition of the River Windrush. Zöe uncovers their legal warfare using opt-out claims to make corporate giants rethink their actions. We'll also compare the water systems globally to the UK's, exploring how privatisation led to profits at the expense of infrastructure. Ending on a note of damages, we decipher how a tribunal would decide the overpayment for each customer.
Water companies in the UK have been dumping ever-increasing amounts of sewage into our rivers and waterways. Now, a law suit could hit them where it hurts and cost them hundreds of millions of pounds. Law firm Leigh Day is leading a collective action accusing them of abusing their dominant position by over-charging customers.
The action hinges on the allegation that water companies knowingly failed to report the number and extent of sewage discharges and were therefore allowed to charge customers more. The first claim has been issued against Severn Trent and further claims will be issued against Thames Water, United Utilities, Anglian Water, Yorkshire Water and Northumbrian Water. Zöe Mernick-Levene , a partner at law firm Leigh Day explains the case against them which is being brought by Professor Carolyn Roberts an environmental and water consultant.
Ashley Smith from campaign group Windrush Against Sewage Pollution joins us to talk about his work and explain how mathematician Peter Hammond used AI to expose thousands of unnoticed spills.
We delve into how this data is captured, scrutinized and the fact that just 1% of it is reviewed by the environment agency. We'll probe into why water companies are being secretive about data and the crucial impact of citizen scientists in pushing the case forward. We'll also be discussing the reports from dozens of elite triathletes who say they fell ill after competing in the World Championships in Sunderland's water and the response from Northumbria Water. Listen in as we scrutinise the statement issued by the Environment Agency and DEFRA .
Brace yourself for a deep dive into the legal challenges faced by water companies for their pollution. Ashley unfolds the inception of Windrush Against Sewage Pollution and its efforts to expose the deteriorating condition of the River Windrush. Zöe uncovers their legal warfare using opt-out claims to make corporate giants rethink their actions. We'll also compare the water systems globally to the UK's, exploring how privatisation led to profits at the expense of infrastructure. Ending on a note of damages, we decipher how a tribunal would decide the overpayment for each customer.
Water companies have been pumping raw sewage into our rivers and waterways. It's killing wildlife and allegedly making people who swim outdoors sick. Now illegal claims have been issued against one of six UK water companies who are facing legal collective actions for allegedly abusing their dominant market position by underreporting the number of times they cause pollution incidents and overcharging customers as a result. I'm journalist, Angela Walker, and in my podcast I interview inspirational guests and discuss underreported issues. Today I'm in conversation with Zöe Mernick-Levene, a partner at law firm Leigh Day, which is leading the action, and Ashley Smith, the founder of campaign group Windrush Against Sewage Pollution. Ashley, thank you both so much for joining me. Ashley, I'll come to you in a moment, but first Zöe. I mean we all hear about water companies repeatedly discharging sewage into the waterways and I understand this is the first in a series of competition claims against six water companies. The first is against Severn Trent. What's the connection with this competition claims and sewage pollution?
Zöe Mernick-Levene, Leigh Day:
Thank you very much, Angie. It's lovely to be on talking to you about this very important issue and alongside Ashley Smith, who has been absolutely leading with what Professor Hammond and others this issue in the media for a long time now. So our claim looks at the sort of evidence that's been uncovered by Ashley and others and takes that and looks at the fact that these companies, all of our water companies and monopolies you don't get to choose who you buy your water from or who takes your sewage away and treats it, and they're under a whole raft of legal obligations and undertaking in regard to how they're meant to do their job and that's what we pay them for. So when you look at these companies who are consistently, we believe, on the evidence uncovered so far, misreporting the number of times that they pollute our waterways with raw and untreated sewage, so we have to take a step back and say is there something going on here? As well as the environmental harm and we believe it is we believe that competition rules which say that dominant companies and monopolies have, like, a special responsibility to their customers and they're not allowed to exploit customers and abuse their position of power over them in terms of pricing. So the way it works.
Zöe Mernick-Levene, Leigh Day:
Is that off what? Because their monopolies agrees pricing rules with each of these companies, and one of the pricing rules are about how many times they discharge raw and untreated sewage, in addition to the sort of legal requirements they agree with the EA. And when you look at this pricing regime, it has a feature that says that if companies perform better and that will mean they perform, they have fewer spills and discharges than they've been allowed for they get rewarded. And they get rewarded by being able to charge their customers higher prices. And if they do worse than they've agreed, they should be penalized. And that's done through allowing them a sort of smaller amount that they can charge their customers. So it directly connects into how much customers are charged. So our claim is an opt out claim on behalf of the millions of consumers who we say have overpaid because companies have not been reporting accurately to their regulator and therefore being sort of targeted with the penalties that they'd had agreed they would be if they didn't perform their environmental requirements.
Angela Walker:
Now I was talking to Water UK. They've not been able to put anyone forward for an actual interview, but they have issued this statement and it says "this highly speculative claim is entirely without merit. The regulator has confirmed over 99% of sewage works comply with their legal requirements. If companies fail to deliver on their commitments then customer bills are already adjusted accordingly and, ashley, you've been campaigning to raise awareness of sewage pollution. In fact, I've been with you and witnessed raw sewage being pumped into waterways on several occasions. I've seen sanitary towels being flushed out, toilet paper. Clearly the smell has been raw sewage. What do you think about this? They're saying it's highly speculative and entirely without merit.
Ashley Smith, Windrush Against Sewage Pollution:
Well, that's an interesting idea, isn't it?
Ashley Smith, Windrush Against Sewage Pollution:
Because it's precisely about data analysis and declaring the data that companies like Severn Trent and United Utilities have been withholding to maintain their possibly to maintain their high status, because no one but the regulators can see and we know that the regulator, environment agency only takes 1% of the data that Professor Hammond will analyse, for example, and that's why his very granular analysis has been able to show the pollution that changed the assessment of the water companies from the rosy perspective that the environment agency was showing up until about 2020-21. There was then a dip in performance of the water companies, according to the agency. Well, there wasn't. Actually, there was the same performance by those companies, but they had been stripped bare of the gloss that had been applied by poor data analysis and a failure to analyse data by the regulators. So it's very interesting now to get behind that and to suggest that there's no merit to trying to reclaim money that looks like it's been tricked out of the bill payer is a ridiculous statement. Of course there's merit to that. That's just natural justice.
Angela Walker:
How exactly is this data reached? I mean, it must be tricky to quantify, to work out how much sewage is being discharged. So how is it recorded and how is it analysed? Because it sounds quite complicated to me.
Ashley Smith, Windrush Against Sewage Pollution:
Yeah, Peter Hammond is a mathematician. He's a data analyst who worked for the Big Data Institute at Oxford, so he was able to handle the huge volumes of data that were being sent out by water companies that show the flow of the water companies dealing with their outfalls from their sewage works. You've got the event duration monitors that show on off times most of the time for sewage bills, but he was able to identify when a spill happened by examining the profile of the flow data, and it initially applied artificial intelligence to identify that, and that was back in 2021. He published an academic paper in a recognised, respected journal that showed the use of artificial intelligence to identify a thousand thousand illegal spills that had not been picked up by the environment agency, and he went on to do a lot more, and that's because he bothers to do it.
Ashley Smith, Windrush Against Sewage Pollution:
The data is there, but the regulators have never bothered to look and that's how they've managed to keep this illusion that the water companies were behaving themselves, despite what other people were actually observing with their eyes and ears that their rivers were being destroyed.
Ashley Smith, Windrush Against Sewage Pollution:
They were seeing pollution events the regulators kept coming back to they're not breaking the law and the water companies relied upon that and they're still trying to rely upon that.
Ashley Smith, Windrush Against Sewage Pollution:
But that's largely been stripped away by campaigners like Professor Hammond, like Jamie Woodward up in Manchester doing the microplastics analysis, identifying it in that way, and other groups like Surfers Against Sewage, who also publish data to show people when they shouldn't go in the water. So it's a strange affair really. You take this information, you take it to government and you expect that to be the answer, but of course it isn't. The government. All the government has done has made moves to protect shareholders, to make sure they're not exposed to heavy investment demands. So when we see Leigh Day and we see the, the action now being taken to stir things up and to start to rattle this comfortable arrangement where the bill payer, the captive bill payer, monopoly companies just has to keep paying, has got no choice, no competition, no one to go to when they're not happy, it's great to see that rattle, that this is how change is going to happen.
Angela Walker:
Zöe, tell me how did this action come about? I gather it's being brought by Professor Caroline Roberts, who's an environmental and water consultant, but just talk me through the process.
Zöe Mernick-Levene, Leigh Day:
So this is a opt-out claim, which means that we get to combine all the individual claims of each household and each household customer and combine it into one big aggregate claim. So, for example, against seven trends, we estimate that there are approximately eight million people who have paid directly or indirectly, through their rent, the water and sewage bills in the relevant period and that then there are damages or the amount that's due back to customers has been overpaid of about 330 million. And what this means is that everybody who has paid those bills is automatically included in the claim and they don't need to do anything. They don't need to come forward, they don't need to sign up or pay anything, and only when we win, or if we win at the end or have a settlement, then they come forward and claim the amount that's due to them. So this is really beneficial both for the individuals because people don't have to go around making legal agreements and, you know, sort of signing up to things years in advance but also really helpful for really making companies, such as all these water companies, think twice before they breach competition rules and environmental rules that can be connected to a competition claim like this.
Zöe Mernick-Levene, Leigh Day:
Our claim works with Professor Hammond and the analysis that he did.
Zöe Mernick-Levene, Leigh Day:
He and others have handed over the information requests, the environmental information request they've made over many years, and we've taken that data and we further analysed it and refined a method that we think will stand up to court scrutiny. And you know, more importantly, the defendants water companies are likely to, you know, throw everything they can at challenging this method. But we are confident because we have really really analysed everything Professor Hammond and Wasp and others have done and we, you know, believe that we've got a really great methodology that can withstand, you know, those challenges and we believe that when we get the data, the full data, in due course through the court process, that this will really shine a light on how bad it is and they will no longer be able to hide behind the suggestion that you know, oh, we have, you know you haven't been able to analyse it, or this data isn't quite right or this approach is not right. It is right, it's absolutely correct, and we believe that the evidence is is only going to be, you know, stronger as the case goes on.
Angela Walker:
So is it your belief that the water companies have had the data all along and are withholding it?
Zöe Mernick-Levene, Leigh Day:
They absolutely have had the data. They are required, as I think Ash mentioned, to hold on to very sort of detailed granular data. But what they have been handing over they don't need to hand over that level of granularity to the regulators. So they've been able to sort of know that it's. We believe they knew, or should have known, that they were spilling far more than they actually were, but when it came to sort of reporting to the regulators maybe they never even looked at that data. We just don't know what they did. But we believe that this will all come out in due course as a result of these claims. And I should say that many of the citizen scientists, like Ash and others have been requesting, through environmental information requests, this data over many years and it is, you know, that persistence and you know that sort of engagement with the level of detail that has allowed us to start building this case and hopefully we can take that work on.
Angela Walker:
I should bring in here that I did get in touch with the Environment Agency in Defra. They weren't able to put anybody forward for interview for this programme, but they've issued a statement. I'll read it out in full, as they've requested that I do. "As the environmental regulator of the water industry, we are unequivocal that polluting our rivers is unacceptable and that water companies need to deliver sustained improvements in water quality. We continue to work closely with the many people in the sector who want to see improvements. We're increasing the number of specialist staff who will focus solely on water companies and improving monitoring of sewage outflows. We also lead on environmental prosecutions in England, and the public should be reassured that serious misconduct will lead to criminal charges for the industry. Now, ash, we have seen criminal charges previously, haven't we? Why do you think that we've not seen more of them? When this data is, you say, available?
Ashley Smith, Windrush Against Sewage Pollution:
It's a real shame that you can't actually ask someone from the Environment Agency that question, because they've got a budget of £1.9 billion that they can't put anybody up to be challenged. That sort of statement does require absolute challenge because they're not regulating those companies effectively. They're a captured regulator. That's the economic theory of captured regulation, where the regulator starts to serve the interests of the industry because the industry is able to lobby that regulator. There's a revolving door of employment between it. During the trial of the big trial of Southern Water, the then director of operations of the Environment Agency towards the end of that trial got a job with Southern Water itself. The judge remarked that it was unusual that the directors had been absolutely implicated in knowledge of that offence but didn't appear in court. So this is captured regulation, is failed regulation. The public have no voice in it.
Ashley Smith, Windrush Against Sewage Pollution:
The prosecutions that do happen. For example, Thames Water were fined £20 million in 2017. It's highly unusual for them to get through to a prosecution because the policy is to only prosecute the tiniest fraction. It sounds like it's sensible because you're prosecuting the most serious, but it means that most offences go completely unchallenged and therefore become just normal business. Now that £20 million, it turned out was for polluting over about four years and we worked it out that it was actually represented about 2.4% of the profit made during those years. So it was basically like processing Thames Water's money through PayPal and people were saying, well, that's a deterrent. Well, of course it wasn't. It was a confirmation that they'd made the right commercial decision pollute, get away with it, get caught a little bit from time to time, pay the odd big fine and just carry on because it's far cheaper than doing the job legally and properly, because they know they can get away with it with this type of regulation.
Angela Walker:
I should mention the Environment Agency said they can't comment on current criminal investigations or ongoing legal proceedings, although, to be fair, I invited them on prior to our knowledge about these legal proceedings, on another issue which I'd like to talk about now, which is about what happened in Sunderland over the weekend where around 60 world-class triathletes who came to this country to compete in the world triathlon. They all suffered. They reported diarrhoea and sickness after swimming and that's what we were originally coming onto this podcast to talk about. And now obviously we've had this development today about these legal proceedings. So let's talk about that a bit, if we can. We've had all these athletes coming here to compete. They're swimming in the water the next day. They've all got diarrhoea and sickness.
Angela Walker:
But Northumbria Water said "we're concerned to hear participants have been ill and happy to support partners within investigation. We've had no discharges from our assets that might negatively impact water quality. Bathing waters were designated as excellent in the latest DEPHRACAP classifications. How can they say that the water quality has been classified as excellent? Well, we've got 60 athletes who are saying I swam in that water and now won't become very ill.
Ashley Smith, Windrush Against Sewage Pollution:
I spoke to surface against sewage, about bathing quality, and they regard the testing regime the Environment Agency carries out is incredibly sparse. It's very, very infrequent. It measures E coli and coliform bacteria, but if they find a high result, they're allowed to attribute it to an unusual event and discard it. So they're allowed to basically hide pollution events, which is most bizarre, isn't it really? And actually, with sewage discharge it doesn't have to be untreated sewage. That is a big carrier of bacteria.
Ashley Smith, Windrush Against Sewage Pollution:
Treated effluent sewage effluent unless it's treated, but unless it's treated with ultraviolet or something to kill bacteria. Sewage effluent the so-called clean water that is returned to the environment after treatment, is loaded with coliform bacteria, chemicals, drugs, hormones. It's very far from the clean water that you often read on the website of OFWAT and the water companies. In fact, we can show you video of what that sometimes that water looks like, and it's actually a video that's often used in the news when people think they're talking about untreated sewage. It's treated. It's appalling. So it's a murky business that the water companies are quite again, quite disingenuous about.
Angela Walker:
We've talked a bit about money. Let's talk about the environmental effect. Because you've been monitoring this for such a long time, Ash, tell us when did you get started with Windrush against sewage pollution and what prompted you initially?
Ashley Smith, Windrush Against Sewage Pollution:
We started it as a group in 2018. And that had come about because I moved to live near to the River Windrush, which was one of those rivers that everybody talks about with great awe because of its history as a beautiful limestone river that people used to travel across the country to come to fish. It was, and we've got video of this, and you have to have this now because no one would believe it without the video. It was a wonderfully clear river. Even down in Witney, in fact, especially in Witney, there were shoals of big fish swimming around in great fronds of lovely greenweed.
Ashley Smith, Windrush Against Sewage Pollution:
You go there today, as we've done, without you know, videoing the same places, and it's just a gray slab of water chugging along. There are still minnows and there's still some fish in there. There's still populations of fish hanging on, but the degradation is profound and depressing, and this is something that's mirrored across the country. Many people will tell you this too, and, of course now, if you're younger than about 20, you may never even have seen a river in good status. So it's a gradual moving down of the bar of expectation. Sometimes, you know, at some stage people just look at a lifeless piece of water and think it's always been like that.
Angela Walker:
That's very sad to think about, and I mean beaches are being shut. In Cornwall we're seeing signs up saying you know, don't swim in here, the water's dirty. Do you think these kind of events are creating more public awareness and, you know, an impetus to get something done?
Ashley Smith, Windrush Against Sewage Pollution:
Yeah, absolutely. You asked me why I set it up, boss, actually did it because I knew I had some dealings with the Environment Agency in Defra and their response just told me if you don't do something yourself with the community, nothing is going to change here. They were in complete denial, completely captured and just managing the decline of our water. So one of our key parts of our strategy has been to communicate and to use the media to get the truth out, because without the public, without the public knowing what's going on and turning this into a voting issue actually a national voting issue nothing will ever change. They will be given the worst possible service that these companies think they can get away with, because they are monopolies and regulation was meant to stop that. It never did and it never will. So that's why we did it, and every aspect of it whether it's for wild swimmers, whether it's for the environment, whether it's for bacteria or the death of fish it all has an aspect that attracts people's attention. And the other one, of course, is the money. Now, people have basically been scammed out of money Since the start of privatisation.
Ashley Smith, Windrush Against Sewage Pollution:
This was identified really early on. There's been plenty of studies of it by very respected people like Professor David Hall, Professor Dieter Helm and others that will show that water industry did not bring investment. Privatisation did not bring investment. It just gave wealth equity firms the opportunity to use the annual harvest of billpayers' money as a way to extract the maximum for the shareholders. That's all they care about and that's their job. That's not a criticism. It's just to say that's not the model. That's not the model. It should be applied to a national resource.
Angela Walker:
The frustration of the general public is palpable, isn't it, when every year, we see the bonuses for water bosses in England. I mean, you know, we're looking at on average £100,000 in bonuses, despite missing targets. I've got figures here that 22 water bosses paid themselves £24.8 million. At the same time, we've got beaches which are being shut off with sign saying please stay out of the sea, people falling ill, wildlife is being killed off. So we're hearing that perhaps this is because of the way that it works with privatisation. But, Zöe, what's your view on that and what could be done about it?
Zöe Mernick-Levene, Leigh Day:
Well, I mean, you know, for our legal claim, we believe that we need to hit these companies. You know where they care and where it hurts and that is one of the actually stated aims of bringing these opt-out claims. It's meant to be a deterrent, like this is a legally approved kind of concept that these claims are so big. They take all these individual small amounts of £50, £40, and you combine it together and you get a massive, big amount that makes a company think. If I'm going to be liable potentially for that, maybe I really do have to think twice Because, as Ash has mentioned, you know, there are perhaps £20 million fines.
Zöe Mernick-Levene, Leigh Day:
There are, you know, maybe £100 million fines elsewhere by the regulator, but these are few and far between and you know it seems that you know these companies have just not been reporting accurately to the regulators as they are obliged to do. So you know whether we the correct kind of financial model of whether it's nationalised, whether it's state-owned, whether they're privatised, you know isn't directly part of our claim and you know we may have private views on what the answer is to that, but you know we believe that this claim really makes them think twice. These are large amounts. They will have to justify, you know, to their shareholders why they are having to pay out all of these, and we absolutely believe that. Off-what will not if we are found to have, if we win our case, we do not believe off what will allow them to recover this from customer bills. This will have to come from the parent companies, from the shareholders, from lower bonuses, from their own pocket. You know there is no way that that's going to be an acceptable outcome. How do you?
Angela Walker:
Yeah, I mean, that's what you know the public is going to be concerned about because we get this in the hospitals, don't we? They get fined for doing this and you know they are doing a bad job, or for missing targets, and you know, at the end of the day, it's the people that end up paying. How could it be guaranteed that it's not just going to be tagged onto our bills?
Zöe Mernick-Levene, Leigh Day:
The courts in this country believe that they have been abusing competition law by overcharging their customers, because each of those companies has to agree with off-what how they manage their pricing and what they're allowed to charge customers. You know there would be a humongous pressure and I'm sure off-what wouldn't do it anyway but there would also be a, you know, judicial and societal pressure that they would not be allowed to just recover that through their bills. So what that will mean is lower returns to their shareholders or no returns. It will mean shareholders potentially putting in money, as they did in the southern and or it'll meet the parent companies who are also suing alongside the company that you know provides the water to you sort of stumping up for that cash. So you know we'll be making that very clear.
Angela Walker:
It's really unfortunate that nobody from any of the water companies I approached was available for comment on this program. What I will say is that something that they maintain is that we've got a Victorian sewage network, which means that rainwater and sewage go through the same pipes, and this means it's quite difficult when there's heavy rain. What do you think about this defence of all? We've got a really aging sewage network. It's not our fault, kind of thing, Ash.
Ashley Smith, Windrush Against Sewage Pollution:
Well, I think it's absolute nonsense actually, and I think when we look at the detail of that, there is very little. You've only got to look at Google Earth actually to look at how many, how much development took place post-war. Most sewers, most sewage assets are much more recent than that. Now, if they tend to blame the network itself and make it sound like that's a very difficult thing to deal with, even if it was, they've had it for 30 years and all it's done is got 30 years older. They've never fixed it. But there is the kind of suggestion there that it's the network method of dealing with two types of water rainwater and sewage together. Well, if that's been a bad idea, why have they perpetuated it over the last 33 years? And why are they still charging customers to do that? They charge for surface water drainage as well. So I've no time for that at all. That's just an illusion. It's like blaming the Romans for traffic on the M25 on a Friday afternoon.
Angela Walker:
There's another aspect that I'd like to talk about just slightly, which is, you know, we're also told that there's a huge demand for new housing. How can we have these new houses when the sewage network that we have can't support the existing housing developments? And this is really interesting because there are plans for a new housing development in a place called Ascot under whichwood, which is an Oxfordshire. And tell us about what's going on there, ash, because people there are saying how can you put new houses here when you can't deal with the sewage from the existing ones?
Ashley Smith, Windrush Against Sewage Pollution:
Yeah, for many years water companies and the Environment Agency have just nodded through developments like that and said, yes, we can handle that, don't worry about it. And what they meant was, yes, we can handle the extra connection fee and the extra bills, but we won't bother to do anything about it because we know we can get away with it. So quite recently Wasp engaged with the local council, west Oxfordshire District Council, the councillors and the officers, the planning officers, and had a discussion about how the planners can take the word of the water industry now under legal guidance. But they don't have to and they can accept actually contrary and accurate information which we've now started to provide that shows that water companies are acting illegally at a sewage works. The sewage works cannot function legally, so to add extra housing to that before it's fixed would be entirely wrong and, we think, illegal.
Ashley Smith, Windrush Against Sewage Pollution:
So conditions are being applied and I have to say that Thames Ward have actually been quite cooperative and it's not to say that they, you know, the last time around with Ascot they forgot to make this point and we had to remind them. But they have generally been quite cooperative about it and have recognised it and have applied for something called Grampian conditions to planning, which are conditions on something that's outside of the actual thing that's being built, so something to do with the net, the infrastructure or similar and that is about the condition that the sewage works have to be upgraded before these houses will be occupied. Again, developers tend to ignore these sort of things and occupy them anyway, and that's another flaw in the system. But we're making steps towards making it much more difficult to overload already broken systems, because that ultimately and I have to bring it forward a little bit here, because we hear about people getting sick like they did up with the triathlons it's simply a matter of time before somebody dies from a sewage related illness.
Ashley Smith, Windrush Against Sewage Pollution:
People get very, very sick. That's just a matter of luck. That hasn't been worse, could already have been worse, but when that day comes, there will be a coroner's inquiry into it and then some serious questions will have to be asked about the people who let these risks be continued and actually made worse in terms of public health risk. Of course, then we'll have all of this. Lessons had to be learned, blah, blah, blah. But people know what those lessons are now and they are taking some serious chances People in authority, in water companies and in the regulators and in the local authorities, and the local authorities are waking up to that now.
Angela Walker:
That's an interesting point you make, because with the triathlons we're talking about about 60 people who are extremely fit and healthy who have succumbed to some kind of illness that they say they contracted from the water. If they were small children swimming in there, or elderly people or people who were not particularly fit and healthy, who knows what the outcome of ingesting this kind of bacteria might have been. But what I'm thinking about, what I'm wondering about really, is what goes on in other countries. Zöe, do you know what kind of sewage networks other companies have, and have we seen any kind of similar legal action as to your action that you're taking? Is there a precedent for that kind of action anywhere else that we know of?
Zöe Mernick-Levene, Leigh Day:
Most other countries, certainly in Europe, did not think it was a good idea to hand away their essential utilities, like water and others, to a disparate group of profit maximizing companies.
Zöe Mernick-Levene, Leigh Day:
Other countries have my understanding is far better on average water quality in their rivers and lakes, certainly countries like Germany and Switzerland.
Zöe Mernick-Levene, Leigh Day:
I think there are in some places in Germany requirements that the local mayor must go and bathe and swim in rivers to prove how wonderful it is, and they will drink the water from the rivers they will swim in. That's not to say there aren't issues in other countries. I'm sure there are also pressures and issues, but it feels like, and I'm pretty sure, that England is one of the absolute worst in Europe, certainly, if not in the world. I think that it comes back down to the question of when we think about this for our claim. Whatever the system is, it is clear that these companies were required under the rules, as they are now, to be honest with their regulator and self-report the number of pollution incidents. Whatever the system is and the wider system. That does not get away from the fact that they were already obliged to report these accurately and that this has led to overcharge for normal householders who have absolutely no choice but to pay these bills.
Angela Walker:
DEFRA have said they've got an ambitious plan for water which sets out increased investment and they've confirmed 1.1 billion in new accelerated investment to tackle storm overflows. Ash, is that going to help? I mean going forward.
Ashley Smith, Windrush Against Sewage Pollution:
Well, earlier in the year they admitted that they'd under-invested by about 10 billion and that they were going to bring that 10 billion pounds in. But guess what? It wasn't going to be the shareholders that were going to pay it, it was going to be the customer. Yet again, 1.1 billion with the sort of numbers that we see water companies claiming to need to spend to do very simple pieces of work doesn't go very far at all. They talk about 56 billion being the requirement over the next 25 years, when they've taken out 72 billion while allegedly investing 160 of our money. So effectively, they've charged us 45 pence for every pound of our money that they've spent on, not something that isn't just taking it away, something in the infrastructure.
Ashley Smith, Windrush Against Sewage Pollution:
But you won't really believe that of what the economic regulator has no idea what that money was spent on. We've had that long conversation with Off-Broad to chief executive level. They don't know. They don't audit what water companies do. They just know how much money they spent at the end of the year and that, compared to what they thought they would need to spend, it's murky, it's beyond murky. It's so broken. It's so hard to put this across to the public because it sounds ridiculous that we're in this state in the 21st century, in the developed world, after 33 years of privatisation. It is this much of a shambles. It's really hard for people to grasp that the privatisation has just been used as an ATM for funds from the government of China, the Abu Dhabi wealth fund, the Canadian pension fund, the list goes on. People that don't really care about our environment, frankly.
Angela Walker:
Zöe, final word to you, I think. Where does this legal claim go? Next, what is going to happen?
Zöe Mernick-Levene, Leigh Day:
So we have started issuing the claims against.
Zöe Mernick-Levene, Leigh Day:
We've started with Seventh Trent and we'll be issuing another five claims over the coming months against Thames Water, united Utilities, anglian Water, northumbrian Water and Yorkshire Water and we will be bringing those claims and we hope within the next sort of six months to a year we will have a case before the Court of Appeals tribunal where they will look at our case and decide whether we can proceed.
Zöe Mernick-Levene, Leigh Day:
They will look at Professor Caroline Roberts and decide whether she's appropriate to represent all the millions of people who we say have overpaid to these water companies.
Zöe Mernick-Levene, Leigh Day:
And then we will go through stages such as getting the data from the water companies and then we will be analysing that data in detail to show exactly how many spills we believe on our methodology, based on the work of others such as Ash and Wasp, have done initially, and we will be taking that and analysing it and saying you know these are how many spills they've done. Ultimately, if we're successful on that, the tribunal will award what they call damages, so that's the amount each person has overpaid and that will be done on a global amount and the water companies will have to pay over the total amount and at that point, anybody who is part of the claim. So if you're a customer of any of these six water companies, you will come forward and claim your damages and get your compensation. So your listeners, they don't need to do anything. They can visit our website, which is mywatercasecouk, and get more information, but they only need to sort of sign up and come forward at the end when we have been successful.
Angela Walker:
Zöe Ash. Thanks for joining me.
Ashley Smith, Windrush Against Sewage Pollution:
Thank you.
Angela Walker:
I'm Angela Walker and I've been in conversation with Zöe Murnick-Lavine from Law Firm Lee Day and Ashley Smith from Windrush against Sewage Pollution. I hope you've enjoyed the show. Please subscribe and share so we can spread the word, and if you know someone who's inspirational or if there's a story you think is under reported, drop me a line through my website, angelawalkerreportscom. Until next time, take care.