Southern Water is your water company whether you like it or not. You have no legal right to choose a different provider. Every bill you pay goes to a company that has dumped raw sewage illegally on a massive scale, paid the largest environmental fine in UK history, and still managed to deliver the worst performance figures since 2011 – all while putting up your bills by more than any other water company in the country.
The sewage problem is real across the Sussex coastline. Hove, Southwick and Shoreham have recorded regular discharges – in September 2022, releases at Hove and Southwick lasted nearly two and a half hours in a single event.
Brighton’s own bathing water quality rating fell from ‘excellent’ to ‘good’ in 2022. In the peak summer season of 2022, Brighton and Hove City Council noted that every beach along the south coast had been affected by sewage at some point during the season.
It is true that Brighton’s main beach benefits from a storm tunnel built in the 2000s that Southern Water says has prevented direct discharges at that specific point since 2012. But it does not change what you are paying for, who you are paying it to, or what that company’s record looks like nationally and along the wider Sussex coast.
This site is about being a Southern Water customer in Brighton and Hove and deciding what to do about it. The sewage is one part of that. The bills, the monopoly, the lack of accountability, and the complete absence of any criminal consequence for the people responsible are the rest.
The facts about Southern Water
Southern Water is responsible for treating the wastewater of around 4.7 million people across Sussex, Kent, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Here is what it has done with that responsibility.
The record
In 2021, Southern Water pleaded guilty to 51 counts of illegally discharging untreated sewage into the sea and was handed a £90 million fine — at the time the largest environmental fine in UK history. Between 2010 and 2015, the company made almost 7,000 illegal discharges at 17 sites across Sussex, Kent and Hampshire. The Environment Agency described it as the biggest investigation it had ever undertaken.
“Over seven years’ worth of untreated sewage poured into rivers and seas in one period alone.”
– Paraphrase of the Environment Agency’s sentencing remarks on Southern Water’s historic discharges.
The fines have not stopped the pollution – they are just the cost of business to Southern Water. The Environment Agency’s 2025 environmental performance report found that Southern Water, Thames Water and Yorkshire Water together accounted for 81% of all serious pollution incidents in 2024. Serious incidents across the industry rose by 60% compared with 2023, and total pollution events reached the highest level since 2011.
In September 2022, Southern Water pumped sewage continuously into the English Channel off East Sussex for more than 36 hours in a single stretch – over 40 hours in a 96-hour period. Beaches from Bexhill to Normans Bay were closed.
The Environment Agency’s 2024 storm overflow data found spill durations across England increased again compared with 2023, describing them as ‘unacceptably high’.
Southern Water holds a 2-star rating from the Environment Agency – one of the lowest in the industry.
The bills
Southern Water customers saw their average combined household bill rise by 46.7% in 2025 – the largest single-year increase of any water company in the country. A further 8% rise followed in April 2026. Over the five-year period from 2025 to 2030, bills are set to increase by 53% in total – again the highest of any company in England. For context, bills have risen by around 40% in real terms across the whole industry since privatisation in 1989 – and Southern Water’s customers are being asked to absorb more than most.
Who owns Southern Water
Southern Water is ultimately owned through a Jersey-registered company called Greensand Holdings, which sits above a corporate structure that includes a finance arm registered in the Cayman Islands. The majority stake – 82% – is held by funds managed by Macquarie Asset Management, an Australian infrastructure investor. Macquarie previously held a stake in Thames Water, which it left carrying an estimated additional £2 billion of debt.
The privatisation picture
Water in England and Wales was privatised in 1989. Since then, water companies have paid out an estimated £72 billion in dividends to shareholders while taking on around £60 billion of debt. Of every £1 paid to the water industry, an estimated 38p is earmarked as profit, with 15p going to dividends and 20p to servicing debt. As a customer, you have no legal right to choose a different provider. Southern Water is a statutory monopoly.
No individual has ever been jailed
Since privatisation in 1989, no water company executive has ever been sent to prison for sewage pollution, despite decades of illegal discharges. The Water (Special Measures) Act, which came into force in 2025, introduced new powers to imprison executives for obstructing investigations, but as of the time of writing, no prosecutions for the pollution itself have been brought against any individual. The Government’s own policy statement acknowledged that only five individuals had been prosecuted by the Environment Agency at all – and only for obstruction, not for the sewage spills themselves.
Myths water companies tell – and the reality
Myth: ‘It only happens because of heavy rain’
Storm overflows are legal during “exceptional circumstances”, such as unusually heavy rainfall, when sewers can be overwhelmed. But a BBC investigation found around 6,000 potential illegal discharges in 2022 alone – sewage released on dry days, which is not permitted under any circumstances. Southern Water was among the companies identified. The National Infrastructure Commission said there is ‘no excuse for dry dumping of raw sewage’ into rivers and bathing waters.
Myth: ‘Our sewage system is Victorian and can’t cope’
This is a partial truth used to deflect accountability. In fact, less than 12% of the sewage network in England and Wales was built in the 19th century. The majority was built in the decades before privatisation, with approximately a fifth constructed in the 1960s and 1970s. Water companies have had 35 years since privatisation – and billions in revenue – to invest in upgrading it. Decades of prioritising dividends and debt over infrastructure has made the problem worse, not better.
Myth: ‘Fines are punishing us and things are getting better’
The £90 million fine in 2021 clearly did not act as a sufficient deterrent. The Environment Agency’s own assessment found that overall industry performance in 2024 was the worst since 2011, with Southern Water among the worst performers. The fines are simply a cost of business.
“The £90 million fine was because we didn’t invest enough.”
– Lawrence Gosden, CEO of Southern Water, on the record penalty for illegal sewage discharges into the sea.
Myth: ‘We’re investing to fix the problem’
Southern Water and its owner Macquarie point to over £1.6 billion in equity injected since 2021 and an £8.5 billion investment plan through to 2030. Those investment costs are being passed directly to customers through bill increases – the 53% rise over five years is the highest of any water company in England. The company’s Environment Agency rating remains 2 stars. We are being asked to pay to fix a problem that decades of underinvestment created.