Last week, South West Water’s (SWW) CEO Susan Davy gave evidence before the EFRA Select Committee, beginning by stressing that her company considers protecting the environment and customer satisfaction to be their two most important priorities, followed closely by health and safety.
For most business CEOs, such a statement would risk inducing a raised eyebrow or two – it’s the boilerplate response to a question about what a company stands for. But to hear this from Ms. Davy was simply laughable.
And that’s because, since taking the reins in 2020, Ms. Davy has overseen a business strategy where it’s easier to believe the environment and their customers are SWW’s bottom two priorities than their top. Fortunately, this was a viewpoint shared by my colleagues on the EFRA Committee.
Rather than fall for Ms. Davy’s warm words for the environment and SWW’s customers, my fellow MPs held her to account for her company’s failings, starting by highlighting the recent £2.2m fine SWW received for multiple illegal water discharges, including some that released harmful chemicals and killed thousands of fish.
Ms. Davy’s response that these were regrettable isolated incidents quickly crumbled after my fellow Liberal Democrat MP Alistair Carmichael highlighted SWW’s atrocious environmental record.
All sewage companies are expected to have no more than 22.4 pollution incidents per 10,000 kilometres of sewer – how many did SWW record, he asked? The answer: 111.24, nearly double the second-worst performing company.
Storm overflows and heavier than expected rainfall were partly to blame, according to Ms. Davy. I’m not sure anyone was convinced by this. This was a common pattern during her evidence. When confronted with her company’s abject failings, Ms. Davy found an excuse.
Again and again, this pattern played out, so much so that when questions around the cryptosporidium outbreak started, I was confident I knew what she was going to say, but I must admit even I was shocked by what I heard.
Hearing Ms. Davy say she understood how devastating the cryptosporidium outbreak was for Brixham and those who became ill was galling to say the least. How can she claim to understand when weeks later she accepted a £300,000 pay rise?
No one with an ounce of compassion who oversaw a crisis of this magnitude, where people became ill because of their company’s ineptitude, can think such an action was appropriate.
Yet clearly Susan Davy did. I wonder whether her board of directors continue to have confidence in her performance?
I’ve repeatedly called on SWW to carry out random testing in domestic supply in Brixham and Kingswear since the cryptosporidium crisis. I was pleased to hear Alistair Carmichael raise this; I was less pleased with Ms. Davy’s answer.
We’re nearly a year on from the cryptosporidium crisis and some people in Brixham are still drinking bottled water. To hear the SWW CEO refuse to implement rigorous testing and admit that the UK Health Security Agency had detected the parasite in the water 24-hours before SWW issued a boil notice will do nothing to restore public confidence.
What this session highlighted to me is the unsustainability of the status quo. Privatisation has clearly failed, and we urgently need the Government to create a new watchdog with teeth to hold rogue water companies like SWW to account.
Ms. Davy began her evidence by talking about the importance of customer satisfaction and environmental protections. As the session went on, these words rang shockingly hollow.
Whether it’s forcing disgruntled customers to sign NDAs or overseeing nearly double the number of pollution incidents as the second worst performing company, SWW under Davy’s tenure is heading to the bottom in every department, and its bill payers who are paying the price.
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