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WATER FIRMS IN SPOTLIGHT ONCE AGAIN
WEDNESDAY 7 DECEMBER 2022
ISSUE 3,904
OFWAT SLAMS LACK OF SPENDING ON VITAL UPKEEP NICHOLAS EARL THE UK’s embattled water firms were yet again publicly berated by the industry regulator yesterday, this time for failing to invest as much as they had promised they would in improving their infrastructure. Regulator Ofwat said firms had spent only around sixty per cent of what they said they would to reduce spills and leakages. Fourteen companies underspent their budget on improving the network between 2020 and 2022, while eight missed their spending commitments for enhancing the wastewater network over the same period. Water firms have to tell Ofwat how much they wish to charge customers in order to invest in their infrastructure. But Ofwat said yesterday only £1.2bn of the signed-off figure of £2bn had actually been spent. Chief offenders include Yorkshire Water and South West Water which
only coughed up 20 per cent and 39 per cent of their wastewater allowances respectively. Chief executive David Black criticised water companies for failing to “service improvements they were funded to deliver”. He said: “No ifs, no buts. Failure to invest or delays to investments means that vital improvements are not being made or are late.” While there is no legal requirement to spend the maximum allocated budget, there has been sustained pressure to tackle unauthorised sewage spills into rivers and at beaches. Ofwat has been aiming to clamp down on shoddy performance across the water sector this year, and has slapped six water companies with enforcement cases. It also teamed up with the Environmental Agency, which earlier this year said bosses should face prison sentences if they didn’t clean up their act on sewage spills, to announce investiga-
tions into all water and wastewater companies last November. However, it has also faced criticism from industry campaigners for failing to impose debt limits on suppliers. Meanwhile, activist group Surfers against Sewage last month exposed continued sewage dumping in dry weather, revealing that 146 dry spills had been detected over a 12month period. A spokesperson from Yorkshire Water argued the latest performance report covers “just two years of the current five-year period” and pledged to boost spending over the five-year term. This outlook was shared by industry body Water UK, which argued that delivering “all of the environmental outcomes it has committed to by 2025” is what matters. It confirmed that firms know “they will be held fully to account for that” by regulators. South West Water said Ofwat’s data does not include investment on base maintenance and operating costs.
FTSE STILL KICKING London blue chip index outperforms peers JACK BARNETT LONDON’s FTSE 100 has breezed past its major international rivals to emerge as the only blue-chip index to squeeze out a gain so far this year. The capital’s premier index has climbed around two per cent in pound terms in 2022 and is on track to end the year as the only collection of big stocks to avoid plunging into the red when measured in local currency. Analysts said the FTSE 100’s gains demonstrate it has been a more effective shield from raging inflation across the developed world this year compared to other stock indexes.
Wall Street’s equivalent, the S&P 500, has shed 16.1 per cent in dollar terms, while the pan-European Stoxx 600 has tumbled around 10 per cent in euro terms. The “FTSE 100 has acted as a good inflation hedge this year,” analysts at BNP Paribas Markets 360 told City A.M. While soaring prices have heaped pressure on households and smaller businesses, commodity giants, which the FTSE 100 is heavily geared to, have reaped in windfalls, prompting investors to pile into the sector. £ CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
‘Death knell’ for city centre pubs if RMT action over Christmas goes ahead EMILY HAWKINS RAIL STRIKES pose more than just the threat of a joyless Christmas, with thousands of jobs and livelihoods on the line, hospitality bosses complained yesterday. Rail union RMT announced three more days of walkouts on Monday
night, with workers set to strike from 6pm on Christmas Eve to 6am on December 27. Industrial action has already been planned for December 13, 14, 16, 17 and January 3, 4, 6, 7. Hospitality chiefs urged all parties to hash out a last-minute resolution and avoid walkouts
over the industry’s busiest trading period. Night time businesses have haemorrhaged up to 40 per cent of expected revenues on previous strike actions while the sector stands to lose £1.5bn sales this Christmas, Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) and
UKHospitality said. Rishi Sunak hit unions with a fresh warning to reconsider offers that are already on the table, with Downing Street yesterday branding a current eight per cent offer “generous and fair”. The additional action would be “the death knell” for many night
time economy businesses, NTIA boss Michael Kill said, dubbing union and rail firms’ behaviour as “unacceptable”. The economic impact of walkouts was “unimaginable”, Nightcap CEO Sarah Willingham, who owns the Cocktail Club, Barrio and The Adventure Bar chains, said.
INSIDE ONSHORE WIND U-TURN P3 UK INVESTOR EXODUS SLOWS P7 MARSTON’S WORLD CUP BOOST P8 LEVI ROOTS ON BRIXTON’S GREEN FUTURE P11 MARKETS P12 OPINION P14