Picture turning on your kitchen tap and nothing happens. Or standing under the shower covered in soap and waiting in vain for the water. In the UK, most of us take this fundamental resource for granted. When we turn on the tap, we expect clean, fresh water to gush out – and to use as much of it as we need.
So when supplies are disrupted, as has been the case in parts of Kent and Sussex over Christmas 2025 and into 2026, it is disturbing. In addition, for the past 20 years at least, there have been many high-profile news stories about sewage pollution in our rivers that have dented confidence in the ability of the UK’s water companies to manage this precious resource.
In 2024, the Water Matters survey by watchdog Consumer Council for Water and Ofwat, the economic regulator of water in England and Wales, found that public satisfaction with water supply services had fallen to just 58% – its lowest level in 13 years. Worse still, only 23% trust their water provider to do what is right for the environment. A recent government white paper (more on this later) recognises these concerns and aims to reform the water industry. But just how safe is drinking water in Britain?
Private hands
First, we need to look at where our water comes from, how it is treated to make it safe, and how this is monitored – as well as who is doing the monitoring. England and Wales are unusual among developed nations in having fully privatised regional water monopolies. In virtually every other country, including Scotland and Northern Ireland, the government controls and manages water infrastructure and supply.
However, in 1989, under the Conservative Government of Margaret Thatcher, the publicly owned regional water authorities of England and Wales were sold to private water and sewage companies for £7.6 billion. There are now 10 major private companies that supply drinking water and deal with sewerage, with another six companies that just supply drinking water. Most of these companies are owned by a complex web of financial bodies, such as pension schemes, with research by The Guardian revealing that around 70% are owned by foreign shareholders. Welsh Water is an exception. Though in private hands, it is run as a not-for-profit business, whereby all profits are reinvested.
Many critics of privatisation – and there are many, such as the campaign group We Own It – argue that because these companies must make a return for their shareholders, they are not committed to investing for the consumer. David Hall, visiting professor at the Public Services International Research Unit at the University of Greenwich, has claimed that water companies have invested “less than nothing of their own money” and are “treating their customers like a cash cow”.
Ewan McGaughey, professor of law at Kings College London who specialises in issues around water privatisation and argues for renationalisation, agrees. “The water companies have paid over £85bn out to shareholders since privatisation and that means they haven’t been able to put the money into infrastructure.”
Ofwat and the water companies strongly refute this claim. “The facts are, there has been huge investment in the sector of over £200bn,” an Ofwat spokesperson told the BBC in 2024. It is undeniable, however, that household water bills in England and Wales are higher than those in Scotland and Northern Ireland and compare unfavourably with many European countries.
Has privatisation made our drinking water less safe? I spoke to my local water company Welsh Water (Dŵr Cymru) and the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI), a government department within the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) whose job it is to monitor water quality in England and Wales. Both strenuously made the point that our drinking water has never been safer and both expressed frustration that the negative press coverage masks a success story.
Common goals
In order to explore how our water is processed to make it safe, I begin by speaking to Philippa Pearson, head of water quality at Welsh Water. Pearson has been with the company for 20 years and her passion and commitment are clear to see. Welsh Water, she tells me, supplies “850 million litres of water a day to three million domestic and business customers. Pipelines alone would stretch to Australia and back if laid end to end”.
Welsh Water’s treatment process is similar to other water companies in the UK. "For surface water, the initial treatment process is to add what we call a coagulant chemical, which attract particles together and remove silts and other impurities. Then, depending on the catchment and some of the challenges, we have an additional filtration process to remove other particles, and then we finish off with disinfection, so that deals with any bacteria, viruses that might be in the water such as Cryptosporidium. We usually chlorinate. We also use UV treatment as well.”
One of the major issues Welsh Water faces, Pearson tells me, is pollution from agriculture, particularly silt, animal waste, oil, slurry and pesticides that run off the land into rivers, especially after rain. This is an extra burden on water treatment and, ultimately, on consumers in their water bills. To tackle this, Welsh Water is working with farmers and landowners in the catchments to find ways to reduce run-off by tackling the issue at source. The largest of these is the Bannau Brycheiniog Mega Catchment (BBMC), which supplies 50% of all Welsh Water’s needs.
“A lot of it is about relationships,” says Pearson. “When I started the catchment management team in 2010 working with the agricultural community initially, there was a lot of suspicion, as if we were accusing them of something. So we’ve worked hard at building trust, finding common ways to work and do what we need to do without impacting each other.”
Pearson tells me of one example where the herbicide MCPA was being detected in water supplies. It was traced to farms in the uplands using boom sprayers to eradicate rushes in wet pasture. Rushes may harbour liver flukes, a parasite often deadly to livestock. Welsh Water convinced the farmers to use weed wipers instead of the sprayers, allowing more precise application of the herbicide so the chemical does not get into the wider environment. The trial, which was later adopted and expanded by the Welsh Government, cost just £15,000 instead of around £6 million for a new water treatment process.
Potential weaknesses
Just how is water quality monitored so that consumers can trust what comes out of their taps? Pearson assures me that water quality has never been better. “We have strengthened the regulations continually based on what we know, things that have happened, and new scientific knowledge.”
She continues: “We have a precautionary approach. It’s a sophisticated operation with a lot of monitoring. We have 24-7 online monitoring as well as our accredited laboratory analysis. It’s all alarmed,
so if anything happens, alarms are raised and the water treatment works might be shut down if that is what is required.”
Overseeing the water companies’ monitoring efforts is the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI). It was formed a year after privatisation to “provide independent reassurance that water supplies in England and Wales are safe and drinking water quality is acceptable to consumers”. As well as assessing the water companies’ sampling programmes and work to improve drinking water, it also investigates incidents affecting water supply to the public and deals with public complaints.
Having been fined £22m for supply failures between 2020 and 2023, South East Water is again under investigation over its role in the supply interruptions of winter 2025 that saw tens of thousands of people left without water due to burst pipes and storm damage in Kent and East Sussex. However, the DWI says “the investigation is ongoing and we cannot prejudice the outcome of these by discussing them.”
Ann Bunting, principal inspector for water at the DWI and Jo Herschan, a DWI inspector, tell me that they work very closely with the water companies in a preventative role – aiming to avoid problems by ensuring infrastructure and monitoring procedures are in place and regularly updated.
Both Bunting and Herschan are at pains to stress that consumers should be extremely confident that drinking water is safe, pointing me to a recent annual report by DWI chief inspector Marcus Rink, who said: “Drinking water quality in England remains excellent, with public supplies consistently meeting the stringent regulatory standards for drinking water. Compliance with the standards in 2024 was 99.97%.”
However, Rink’s 2025 Interim Report highlights, among a handful of issues “several significant operational and compliance issues across water companies in England and Wales. Multiple microbiological detections were reported at treatment works operated by Southern Water, South East Water and Bristol Water”. The inspectorate generally concluded that “operational processes were satisfactory” but identified “potential weaknesses in sampling practices and infrastructure”.
Forever chemicals
Overall, the message from the industry is that our drinking water is safe and that monitoring is frequent and stringent. But is it up to tackling a modern pernicious pollutant that has grabbed headlines in recent years: PFAS? These per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are a family of chemicals comprising many thousand individual materials that are prized for their water-resistant and non-stick properties and so are used in food packaging, floor polish, frying pans and bakeware, outdoor clothing and even dental floss.
But PFAS do not breakdown easily – it can take hundreds if not thousands of years for PFAS to degrade after the products containing them have been thrown away. This has led to PFAS being labelled ‘forever chemicals’ and it’s feared they may leach into waterways and our drinking water.
These fears have manifested in the USA, where a study testing beer found that samples contained PFAS direct from municipal water sources used in brewing. Potential adverse human health outcomes of the PFAS studied include reduced fertility, an increased risk of some cancers and compromised immunity.
Currently, there are no standards in the regulations for PFAS in drinking water in England and Wales. The DWI has published guidelines based on the World Health Organisation’s recommendations for PFAS in drinking water for the water companies.
Both DWI and Welsh Water stress that the issue of PFAS has been blown out of proportion in the UK and that there is very little cause for concern. In Wales, Philippa Pearson says “there were no sources of PFAS in any catchment”. Ann Bunting of the DWI says there is no need to filter drinking water for PFAS and that many of the companies selling PFAS filters are playing on unfounded fears.
In early February, the Government launched a new PFAS action plan, which was a “coordinated action… to understand where these chemicals are coming from, how they spread and how to reduce public and environmental exposure”. Campaigners, including the Wildlife and Countryside Link, criticised it for not going far enough and failing to match the more stringent action taken in parts of Europe.
Dr Francesca Ginley, policy and advocacy manager at the Marine Conservation Society, meanwhile, says: “We need a universal restriction on PFAS by 2030, starting with immediate bans on where there are known alternatives. Every day of delay leads to further harm across the entire ecosystem that both nature and people depend on.”
Tainted reputations
The DWI argues that Britain’s water is among the highest quality and best-regulated in the world – and the available evidence backs this up. But where the water companies are still failing is in dealing with sewage and associated pollution, which is affecting public confidence. Environment Agency figures reveal that 2024 saw a 60% increase in serious pollution incidents compared to 2023.
While campaign groups call ever louder for the renationalisation of water, the Government’s new water white paper, A New Vision for Water, published in January this year is focusing on improving infrastructure, amalgamating Ofwat and DWI into a single regulation body, and offering a new Water Ombudsman to deal with consumer complaints.
Many critics claim the white paper doesn’t go far enough to protect our natural environments, so it will be crucial to see what impact the reforms have on cleaning up our rivers and the tainted image of the private water companies. Clean drinking water should be a given in Britain. Is it too much to ask that the water companies keep our rivers clean, too?
How to limit PFAS
1. Cooking pans
Use cast or spun iron pans that have been seasoned instead of non-stick pans coasted with PFAS. As non-stick pans degrade, the PFAS are released and could get into your food.
2. Clothing
PFAS offer water resistance so are commonly used in outdoor clothing,
but they are best avoided. Look for manufacturers that state they do not
use PFAS.
3. Polish
PFAS are used in polishes, especially car polish and wax, to create a glossy finish that protects from dirt and water. Instead, favour products based on natural soaps and waxes.
4. Furniture
Furniture makers may use PFAS in upholstery to reduce stains and water ingress. Labels such as ‘stain-resistant’ indicate this. Look for natural fibres when possible.
5. Utensils
Plastic and silicone kitchen utensils, especially spatulas, may have PFAS in their coating to provide non-stick properties. Try using utensils made from sustainable wood
or bamboo.
