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At least half of the Thames Water sewage plants are missing pipes and tanks for processing enough wastewater, which brings untreated waste water to spill into rivers and waterways over its network, according to its own company data.
Some 181 of 351 waste water plants have not had enough capacity to treat the incoming material last year, and some are able to process only a third of the amount required by local residents.
A fourth -serving company UKThe population, failed to provide data for about a third of its plants, which means that the total number of places that do not have enough capacity and therefore shedding the waste material can be far higher.
Mark Hull, a water economist in the Oxford (Oric) River campaign, who used the environmental information on data collection from the company, said the findings were “shocking”.
“Century after the processing of sewage has become practical and normal in larger cities, Thames Water does not have enough hydraulic capacity to process sewer processing for flow processing that come in our sewer works. . . which led to the growing tide of wastewater in our rivers, “he said.
The data also shows that the number of websites pouring wastewater in Rijeka for more than 38 hours per week – which was 2,000 hours a year – almost doubled from 22 to 40 between 2020 and last year.
While sewer grooves are increasing with heavy rain, Thames’s own findings have shown that there were long -lasting discharges even in Dry years such as 2022. Oric said “treatment can be performed” or “key parts of the work can occasionally flood.”
The municipalities have been approved by the OTWAT regulator to raise average household accounts for the third to £ 639 this April to invest in its network.
Although the job has committed to use the previous increase in prices to finance the improvement on 108 sewer treatment plants, even by the Non-Landon’s largest factory in Oxford-Potao, which was supposed to start from this year, and the company now wants to start by the end decades.
Data provided by Oric have also shown that Temza He doesn’t know When the secondary sewer sewer at the Oxford factory was upgraded – something that limited the planning permit for thousands of new homes near the city.
Thames State Network – including its lack of information about much of its system – interferes with the effort of the company to collect funding to tighten.
The job has to find new owners and invest in its infrastructure, while serving its debt mountain of £ 19 billion.
However, potential bidders have expressed concern about lack of information on the state of infrastructure, as well as the risk of fines and other unknown costs, according to several people who know about the process.
The company is already facing a fine of £ 104 million for failure to manage a wastewater treatment network, while it is also investigated because of its delay in improvement.
More than 30 percent of the pace ‘ Netmoszenjenje sewage pipes not coated, while the company has already warned that it has £ 18 billion aging of property This is “the risk of public safety, water supply and the environment”.
Although the construction of sewage networks began in the Victorian era, most of the purification plants were built in the 20th century -with a significant expansion of capacity during the period after the war and 1960s and 1970s, when water utilities were still nationalized and controlled under local government. .
Thames Water Seeks Court Authorization for a £ 3 billion loan From his existing borrowers to gas, until he can find new job owners.
The company also closed the work for treatment. Environmental data by the Financial Times show that Thames Water sold or closed at least 45 papers in a decade after privatization, reducing its number with 398 works in 1990 to 353 to 2000 and only 351.
Thames said: “We are responsible for the oldest and most complex infrastructure of any company in that sector and we recognize that we need to invest in an investment to meet the requirements that come with the growth of the population and climate change.”
It said that this year’s price increase will allow it to “deliver a record amount of investment to deal with our old infrastructure” over the next five years. He added that “we continue to execute our plans to upgrade over 250 of our places in the whole region.”
