Cut to the chase: Windermere was ‘used as an open sewer’ because of privatisation

United Utilities is a private water company whose current CEO got a pay packet of over £1.4m in 2023/24. And it has “repeatedly dumped millions of litres of raw sewage illegally into one of England’s most famous lakes, Windermere, over a three-year period”, according to a new BBC report.

The profiteers of “Britain’s biggest water polluter” treated Windermere “as an open sewer”

In some situations, companies have legal permission to dump waste. However, United Utilities illegally pumped “more than 140 million litres of waste” into Lake Windermere in Cumbria between 2021 and 2023.

Former CEO Steve Mogford, who was in charge for most of that time, received a pay packet of £2.3m in 2022. In fact, as This is Money reported, he “made £30m while at the helm of Britain’s biggest water polluter”.

Regarding the 2021-2023 damage United Utilities did to Windermere, the company “failed to report most of it”, according to the BBC.

Save Windermere campaigner Matt Staniek argued that the company had used “the jewel in the crown of the Lake District National Park… as an open sewer”.

Water privatisation is bad for everyone, except CEOs

As campaign group We Own It has explained, “Margaret Thatcher privatised water in England and Wales in 1989”. Welsh Water is now a not-for-profit organisation, and Scottish Water and Northern Irish Water remain in public ownership, but England is one massive experimentation lab for the monsters of privatisation.

In Scotland, We Own It says “bills are lower and rivers and seas are cleaner”, and investment is higher (per household).

The private companies in charge of water in England, on the other hand, have run up billions in debt and given even more billions to shareholders (almost entirely from abroad), all while increasing bills. And as the BBC reported, “sewage spills into England’s rivers and seas by water companies more than doubled in 2023” – particularly in poorer areas of the country.

It added that “water quality is generally higher in other parts of the UK”. And it noted that:

Some environmental charities blame water companies for a failure to fix leaky pipes and other damaged infrastructure – and criticise the regulator for not forcing them to act.

“Under privatisation, it pays to pollute”

As We Own It’s lead campaigner Matthew Topham said in September:

The industry is in ecological and financial crisis. Shareholders have treated the sector like an ATM, extracting billions, not a public service stewarding our natural environment.

Under privatisation, it pays to pollute. Underinvestment in sewage treatment has led to spills, while funds are directed to shareholders’ pockets instead.

He also insisted:

Any bill hikes will serve as a bailout by the public of failed private finance. Keir Starmer has the power to end this rip-off, taking the firm into public ownership for free, as recommended by the Treasury, and halving its debts using Special Administration.

If you agree that change is an urgent necessity, join the March for Clean Water on Sunday 3 November, alongside groups like British Rowing, Extinction Rebellion, the National Trust, and the Women’s Institute.

Featured image via the Canary