“I’m afraid I have no confidence in Southern Water,” a Reform UK Isle of Wight councillor has said to a senior executive at the company.
Councillor Debbie Conlin’s remarks earlier this month came after she asked chief operations officer Tim McMahon how people could accept another ten-year improvement plan from the firm.
The Environment Agency recently gave Southern Water a poor, one-star rating – the lowest possible grade for environmental performance.
At the environment and community protection committee, Cllr Conlin said:
“Southern Water were fined £90 million in 2019. You put forward a ten-year plan to put everything right in 2020.
“It is nearly 2027 now, and Southern Water have got worse on their star rating.
“There are three years remaining for Southern Water to correct everything. How can we accept another ten-year plan for improvement?”
Mr McMahon replied that the £90million was for challenges of the business around wastewater performance.
He said:
“The star rating has reduced…we’ve gone from three stars to one star but as I said if you were comparing apples with apples and how we were measured, that one star last year is the same as the three stars from 2020.
“The targets are getting harder and harder…and more stringent… which we support. We don’t want any pollutions. We want discharge permits compliance to be 100 per cent.”
He said Southern Water is getting better in its performance, citing 2 points.
The company had 400 pollutions in 2020 and, on a “like-for-like” basis, last year had 230, the executive claimed.
Mr McMahon also said Southern Water went from its worst performance in leakage four years ago to its best last year and that the firm has a really good plan going forward.
He continued:
“It’s a big plan that we need to deliver and it’s not going to be easy for us to deliver.
“As we continue with that investment, we will see improvements in that performance but it’s just going to take time to get to where we need to.”
Cllr Conlin responded that she has no confidence in Southern Water.
