Environmental groups are taking legal action against OFWAT, the water controller, accusing customers of making them pay illegally for decades of neglect by the fisheries.
River Action filed a legal claim this month, claiming that if the bill rises for customers approved by regulators, it could be used to fix infrastructure failures that should be addressed years ago.
The group claims that customers could end up being forced to pay twice. Under the regulations, the public should not pay their investments so that water companies comply with operating permits. This includes attachment to the limits of discharge of raw sewage to the river and requirements to ensure that the treatment work is functioning properly.
The water company is investigating violations of the permit by OFWAT. This is an investigation being carried out alongside the criminal investigation by the Environment Bureau.
The legal challenges of River Action focus on funding allocated to wastewater treatment works and pump stations by United Utilities in and around Windermere Lake.
The group argues that OFWAT has enabled United Utilities to divert funds aimed at future projects to address past failures. It is not suggested that United Utilities acted illegally.
“We believe that OFWAT acted illegally by approving it without ensuring it would be spent on real improvements to the essential infrastructure,” said Emma Dearnaley, Attorney General of River Action. “Instead, this… funding is permitted to be used to cover up long-standing mistakes.
“OFWAT has registered in a broken system where customers are being charged again for services they already fund. The cost of fixing UK's collapsed water infrastructure should be on businesses and their investors, not UK citizens.”
River Action believes in a price review approved by OFWAT in January under PR24, the regulator has probably allowed other companies to operate in a similar way, allowing customers to pay for mistakes that had been corrected with previous funds.
Ricardo Gama of Lee Day, who represents the campaign group, said: “Ofwat said…it should not spend price increases on fixing historical issues leading water companies to infringe permits.
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“They say in black and white that customers are not expected to pay twice. But the documents seen in River Actions seem to be that ofwat does not do their homework when checking whether the money they are taking United's utilities from customers is actually used for that purpose.”
A spokesman for OFWAT said: The PR24 process is a systematic scrutiny business plan to ensure that customers achieve fair value and investments are justified.
“Customers agree that they should not pay businesses twice to regain environmental permit compliance and have included appropriate safeguards in their PR24 decision to ensure this. They will respond to their letters in time.”
