Anglian Water is a privatised water company in England, with shareholders primarily based in Canada and Australia. They are regulated by Ofwat and the Environmental Agency.
The company was recently fined a hefty £2.65m for dumping more than 3 Olympic swimming pools worth of sewage into the North Sea. But this isn’t a new occurance for Anglian Water. Only one year previous, the company pleaded guilty in two separate court cases for causing major pollution incidents where poisonous, noxious, and polluting matter entered inland freshwaters without an environmental permit. This barely makes a chip in the combined CEO and shareholder pay-outs of over £97 million in 2021. Let alone the most recent pay outs of £161.2 million to shareholders and £1,391,241 to their CEO, Peter.
To add insult to injury, Anglian Water attempted to pull off a publicity stunt earlier this year with Peter Simpson ‘refusing his bonus’. But this was all just smoke and mirrors. The company instead upped peter’s basic pay to allow him to walk away with even more money than the year before.
This year, Anglian Water had one of the highest numbers of serious pollution incidents in the sector. And they were ranked the worst performing company in the sector for self-reporting of pollution incidents. And they were the worst in the sector for permit compliance. There is a clear pattern of Anglian Water not responding adequately to previous penalties. It is simply unacceptable behaviour.
Anglian Water urgently needs to stop paying themselves for a job clearly not well done, and start investing in our future.