Before a hard-hitting Channel 4 television drama about the water industry hits our screens, research has shown the ongoing rewards for company bosses and their owners
Top bosses running under fire water firms raked in more than £15million in pay and perks last year despite a surge in serious pollution incidents and customer bills.
Analysis also reveals suppliers – many owned by mega-wealthy foreign investment giants – declared more than £900million in dividends.
The figures come ahead of a shocking real life Channel 4 drama that starts on Monday about the damning issue of sewage in England’s waterways.
Dirty Business follows the true story of the Preen family, wracked by grief when their eight-year-old daughter Heather dies after contracting e-coli 0157 on a Devon beach in 1999. Her family feels certain Heather’s death was the result of her coming into contact with raw sewage. South West Water has denied culpability.
The programme is also critical of the Environment Agency, whose role it is to police the industry, and Thames Water, the country’s biggest supplier which is drowning in debt and risks being rescued by the taxpayer. Claims that it allowed large amounts of raw sewage to be pumped into an Oxfordshire river form another central part of the emotive drama.
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Dirty Business has already been compared to ITV’s bombshell drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office about the Horizon IT scandal, and which led to emergency legislation and to former chief executive Paula Vennells handing back her CBE.
Water companies face mounting anger over rocketing customers bills to help fund decades of under investment in the nation’s creaking network, which has led to a woeful track record on leakages and untreated sewage being routinely released into rivers and seas.
Bills soared by an average 26% last April, to a typical £603, and will increase again this April, though by less.
Public fury has been further fuelled by fat cat bosses pocketing bumper pay and bonuses.
And while much of the water sector has been loaded with eye-watering debts since Tory PM Margaret Thatcher’s controversial privatisation of the industry in the late 1980s, it has not stopped firms dishing out billions of pounds over the years in dividends to investors.
New analysis by the Mirror and the GMB union shows how, despite the backlash, much remains the same.
The chief executives of the nine water and sewage companies in England and Wales – together with five water only suppliers – netted £15.1million between them in the last financial year.
Best paid was Liv Garfield, the long serving boss of Severn Trent Water, who received another near £3.3million, including an £830,000 annual salary and £2.3million in bonuses. It takes to £29million the amount she has been paid since 2016.
Yet Environment Agency data shows the number of pollution incidents in Severn Trent’s area rose from 278 in 2023 to 300 in 2024 – the latest year available – with one classed as “serious”. The previous year the company – which paid a £359million dividend last year – was fined £2million for allowing “huge amounts” of raw sewage to discharge into the River Trent. Ms Garfield stepped down at the start of 2026.
South West Water declared a £125million “special dividend” last July, although accounts state it had “not yet been paid”.
Susan Davy was paid more than £800,000 last year in her role as chief executive of owner the Pennon Group. She announced her retirement last July, the same month South West Water agreed to pay a £24m enforcement package over failures to manage its sewer networks. The firm was previously slammed after a 2024 outbreak of cryptosporidium in the water supply in Brixham, south Devon, left some people in hospital while more than 100 others reported symptoms including diarrhoea.
Elsewhere, Nicola Shaw, boss of Yorkshire Water, received a total £1.35million last year – £689,000 from the company itself plus £660,000 in fees from owner Kelda, controlled by among other investors in Hong Kong and Australia.
Yorkshire Water was among companies singled out by the Environment Agency last year when it reported a 60% surge in serious pollution incidents by water companies in 2024. There were a record 2,801 pollution incidents in England in 2024, of which 75 were considered to pose a “serious or persistent” harm to fisheries, drinking water and human health.
Yorkshire Water, whose tally of serious incidents jumped from five to 13 in 2024, paid a £37.5million dividend to Kelda last year, although the firm says this money remained in the business rather than going to shareholders.
Chris Weston, boss of Thames Water, was paid just over £1million in its last financial year, when the company slumped to a £1.6billion loss. He took over in January 2024 and awarded a bonus of £195,000 for his first three months of that year.
Gary Carter, GMB National Officer, said: “Nothing has changed; this latest bonanza shows water companies are still splashing out on whopping bonuses despite legislation to stop it. Meanwhile bills rocket, water workers face abuse and pollution continues to flow into our waterways.
“The public will be rightly furious. Something has to give. The Government must fundamentally change how the water sector operates. MOT’s are not enough, a complete overhaul is required.
“Big bonuses and huge dividends have trashed water companies reputations and until they’re forced to change public anger will continue. Water workers do their best to keep failing infrastructure from falling apart and shouldn’t get the blame for water company failings.”
A Yorkshire Water spokesperson said: “People are rightly concerned about water quality in their rivers and coast, and we’re sorry for the impact that pollution incidents have had on local communities and the environment. No pollution incident is acceptable. Yorkshire Water accepts that historic performance has not been good enough and our focus is on delivering improvements, transparently and at pace.”
Severn Trent Water said: “Pay is based on performance, which is why just under three-quarters of Liv’s pay is variable and directly linked to achieving stretching targets.” On its pollution track record, it said: “We have delivered more than 2,700 improvements to reduce the use of storm overflows since 2024 and we’re investing a record £15billion to upgrade infrastructure.”
South West Water said: “The dividends mentioned were correctly declared and remained unpaid at the date of the last financial statements given ongoing financing across the group.”
On the Dirty Business drama, it said: “The loss of a child is devastating, and we recognise the lasting impact this has had on those closest to her. At the time, there was an extensive and multi-agency investigation involving public health authorities, the Environment Agency and other relevant bodies. “The Outbreak Control Team report concluded that, despite intensive investigations, no cause for the outbreak was identified.
“The inquest documentation confirms that no definitive source of infection was established. The inquest report also noted that E. coli O157 is a bacteria commonly carried by animals, particularly cattle and dogs.”
