SAS and 38 Degrees Public Survey 28.5K responses. The public want public ownership. “When asked to share thoughts their thoughts about the private vs public ownership of water respondents strongly favoured the nationalisation of water, citing the overwhelming failure of privatisation to deliver for the public or the environment."

Supported by the Ilkley Clean River Group.

The report sets out how:

1.Investors didn’t invest.

2.Yorkshire didn’t need to borrow to finance capital expenditure.

3.Yorkshire debt is not like a mortgage to fund long term infrastructure.  It is like credit card debt to finance an extravagant life-style.  And it keeps growing.

4.Privatisation made capital investment hugely expensive.

5.Yorkshire’s parent companies have not been a support, but, instead, huge financial burden.

1.Investors didn’t invest.

2.Thames didn’t need to borrow to finance capital expenditure.

3.Thames’ debt is not like a mortgage to fund long term infrastructure, but like credit card debt to finance an extravagant life-style.  And it keeps growing.

4.Privatisation made capital investment hugely expensive.

5.Thames’ parent companies have not been a support, but a huge financial burden.

Evidence submitted by Up Sewage Creek

Evidence from A Fresh Water Future Alastair Chisholm, Director of Policy at CIWEM

Evidence from Prof Liz Sharp, Presented at the Resilient Water Systems Event.

 1. The current water system treats water supply, drainage, and flood protection as isolated technical domains, managed by experts for a passive public. 

2. Excluding the public from engaging with the water system represents a missed opportunity to reduce our demands and to enable greater resilience. 

3. Mobilising public action to address water requires regional democratic oversight 

This includes

1 Weak regulation allowing water industry to game the system

2 Access and quality standards for data and regulatory permits

3 Animal and human health issues not receiving suƯicient attention

Greener Berwick estuary group, have concluded that regulation by EA is wholly inadequate, largely due to lack of funding, eroded over many years. Also that the tools available (licences, EDMs and relevant legislation for classifying bathing water) are not fit for purpose.

The Water Company (NW) 2025 proposals will assist, but it remains to be seen if, how and by when they might be fully implemented.

After the water and sewage companies in England and Wales were privatised in 1989, significant progress was made in inland, bathing and drinking water quality. Over the past ten to twenty years, much of this good work appears to have been undone, especially in the public eye. What is really going on and how can the sector restore its reputation?

The author reviewed Environment Agency macrophyte survey data from around 2004 to 2022 to see if it was able to illustrate the change from a river brimming with macrophytes (higher plants, waterweeds) as recently as 2019 to a weedless river as we now have in 2025. It includes information on phosphate, ammoniacal nitrogen and nitrate in the river, some from the EA, plus more from CARP measurements. 

Investigation into Welsh Water Finances by Alastair Hill, Save the River Usk

Wylam Clean Tyne is convinced that only radical reform of the EA and its approach to policing the water companies and other polluters will clean our rivers and coastal waters. The EA has not succeeded in controlling pollution and needs to change both its philosophy and its methods of control.

Evidence submitted to the government’s independent commission provided for the People’s Commission from Bill Kingdom – Former Global Lead for Water Supply and Sanitation at the World Bank, Washington, DC, Lecturer at Oxford University and International Consultant

CRKC agrees with the People’s Commission that ‘the public needs to be at the centre of the plans for the future, not sidelined into a passive captured customer role.

The ORIC submission to the Cunliffe Commission.

we believe an equally critical issue is going unnoticed: the flawed system by which future water resources are selected and justified.

SESRO Lack of Drought Resilience

Our modelling of the South East Strategic Reservoir Option (SESRO) has found that it lacks meaningful drought resilience. The Secretary of State has ignored warnings from the Environment Agency about its inefficacy during periods of drought.

Submitted by GARD (Group Against Reservoir Development)

director of SAFERWaterS What is the name of the organisation Ltd which is orainterested claimant in group the Judicial Review of the that you are responding Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (defendant) and Ofwat, Thames Water, Affinity Water and Southern Water and Water Resources South East (interested parties) due to be heard on June 25th.

The focus of my evidence is on the financial aspects of the industry: the financial regulation of the industry, the financial incentives and financial performance of water companies, but I cover other aspects of the industry which have is a financial consequence.