Severn Trent Water in spotlight - 27 July

Severn Trent Water is under scrutiny over its operations as thousands of Gloucestershire residents rely on bowsers in the street for their drinking water as they wait for supplies to be restored to their homes.

The floods have sent the water industry into emergency mode, with several companies lending bottled water, tankers and lorries to Severn Trent to aid the delivery of supplies to customers.

However, questions are being raised about what the floods mean for the industry long term and whether the country’s drinking water and sewerage systems can cope if extreme weather becomes more frequent.

The flooding of Severn Trent’s Mythe water treatment works in Tewkesbury led to more than 340,000 people having their water cut off, and the company is likely to face scrutiny over whether the plant was adequately protected. Other water companies with plants in flood-prone areas will examine the vulnerability of their operations.

Tony Smith, chief executive of the Consumer Council for Water, said Ofwat, the water regulator, should investigate whether companies had invested enough money in protecting their infrastructure.

“How far should the water companies have already protected their treatment works from this kind of incident? What amount of work has already been funded?”

But Mr Smith said the bigger issue was what extra work was necessary, and how much this would add to water bills.

He insisted that the water supply had held up well during the floods, regardless of the situation in Tewkesbury and the drinking water contamination at Sutton & East Surrey Water. The main problems had been with overflowing sewers.

Mr Smith said Ofwat and the government would have to weigh up how much more robust households would like the water system to be, to cope with both floods and droughts, against how much extra people were willing to pay on their bills.

Barrie Clarke at the trade body Water UK said companies would include investment plans to cope with climate change in their next pricing submissions to Ofwat in 2009.