Water works

The Financial Times writes today about South West Water being in trouble with the regulators, a piece illustrated by a shot of the very Venford Reservoir which figures in these pages from time to time.

The usual sort of stuff about whether our water resources are being looked after properly and about who pays, given that our water infrastructure has been sold off for ready cash: for example: '... SWW is owned by FTSE 250-listed Pennon, which reported a pre-tax loss of £8.5mn for the year ending March 31 2023 but increased its dividend by 10.9 per cent to £112mn. Pennon had £165mn of cash reserves on its balance sheet at March 31 2023, down from £472mn held at March 31 2020...'.

We also get told of an email: '... In a damning email sent in July to regulator Ofwat last year — and obtained through a freedom of information request by Greenpeace — the Environment Agency said the water company had not been “honest, open and transparent with regulators about their drought projections and potential risks to security of supply” in the summer of 2022...'. And I think it would be interesting to see this email, presumably now in the public domain.

Asking Greenpeace results in far too many hits to process. I then try both Bard (Google) and Bing (Microsoft):  'The Financial Times writes of a damning email from the Environment Agency to Ofwat about South West Water obtained by Greenpeace under the Freedom of Information Act. Are you able to find this email'. Both appear to know about the email but neither is able to find it. But they do offer various hints about how I might go about finding it. All more or less laborious. So not really in the public domain at all. 

Clearly, I am missing something...

PS 1: South West Water is a bit unusual in that they have a great deal of coast line to manage but not all that much population to supply. Not that much population to pay. On the other hand, it is a wet place and they should not be running out of water.

PS 2: I have just learned, quite by accident, that the FT belongs to the Japanese media company Nikkei. Employee owned. To be found at reference 6, where there is a noisy YouTube piece talking about a 5 year old collaborative venture, a partnership of two big deals. Presumably just one more thing that I missed at the time.

References

Reference 1: UK watchdog accuses South West Water of failing to be honest over drought projections: Environment Agency says the utility risked severe shortages in 2022 through ‘complacency’ and ‘lack of understanding’ - Gill Plimmer, Financial Times - 2024.

Reference 2: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/body/south_west_water.

Reference 3: https://www.pennon-group.co.uk/. Appears to be about water in the west of England.

Reference 4: https://www.source4b.co.uk/. Appears to be where you pay your bills.

Reference 5: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/search?q=venford. A sample of the Venford material.

Reference 6: https://www.nikkei.co.jp/nikkeiinfo/en/.