Recommendation 16

Significant action needs to be taken in the short term to meet environmental targets. In 2023 Defra published the Environmental Improvement Plan and set targets for the sector to reduce leakage and demand, and address sewer discharges and phosphorus in treated wastewater. It published the Expanded Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan in September 2023, which set targets for water companies to reduce environmental harm from combined sewer overflows to zero by 2050.44 The EA told us that the Water Framework Directive set statutory obligations to improve the quality of water bodies, which need to be delivered by 2027.45 Over the next five years the activity to meet all of these targets includes over 18,000 actions by water companies, and accounts for £27 billion of the sector’s anticipated £47 billion spend on infrastructure improvements.46