Pennon Group will not achieve 2024 four-star environment rating - bosses

Pennon expects to achieve a two-star rating for the second year in a row

The company behind South West Water and Bristol Water has abandoned its goal of a four-star environmental performance rating in 2024.

The Pennon Group said it did not think it would achieve the result until 2025, blaming "current operating conditions".

It said it expected to achieve a two-star rating for the second year in a row, a standard the Environment Agency classes as "requires improvement".

Pennon said the majority of its metrics were "tracking positively".

It said: "For 2024, whilst six of the seven environmental performance assessment (EPA) metrics are tracking positively towards four-star equivalent performance, current operating conditions have meant the benefits of our pollution incident reduction plan will not be seen until 2025.

"The significantly increased wastewater flows have impacted our headline performance for wastewater pollutions and use of storm overflows."

'Investing to improve'

There was a 50% jump in the amount of rainfall in south-west England during the second half of 2023, with 10 named storms since September, and 12 yellow weather warnings.

Pennon said it had been investing to improve its performance in recent years after South West Water was given a one-star, or "poor performing company", rating in 2021.

It said it had now completed work to diversify its water resources in Devon, and had done 70% of the works planned in Cornwall.

Pennon said: "In Devon, our winter pump storage work at Gatherley is also now operational, and, along with the Lyd pumping scheme delivered last year, both new schemes have been used this year to support improvement in our water resources in Devon."

Its new desalination plant in south Cornwall was expected to be up and running within the next year, it added.

The company said it wanted to increase Cornwall's water resources 45% by 2025, and had met its ambition to increase Devon's resources by 30% - a year ahead of schedule.

South West Water provides water and sewerage services to Devon and Cornwall, plus parts of Dorset and Somerset, and also the Bristol Water area.