Dirty Business: A Grim Tale of Mistreated Rivers

Channel 4’s new series has people across the UK talking about the state of our rivers. In this blog, our Director Shaun Leonard weighs in on the events that led us to this point, and considers some possible paths to a better future.

After years of depressing headlines and justified public outrage, river pollution has reached a new level of notoriety: a docudrama on a major British TV channel. You will most likely have heard about Channel 4’s recent series Dirty Business, which makes for worthwhile (if sobering) viewing. The series unflinchingly relates the extraordinary efforts of Ash Smith and Peter Hammond, of Windrush Against Sewage Pollution, to unearth skullduggery in the water industry; especially as it relates to Thames Water and the pair’s home turf in the Cotswolds. Most under the microscope are the companies that take our wastewater away, rather than those that focus purely on water supply.

If you’re anything like me, the series will leave you furious, disillusioned, and nonplussed in equal measure. It tells a tale of maleficence so staggering that it hardly seems believable. Yet while the events are, of course, dramatised, many are confirmed by evidence in the public record. As the story spirals into allegations of corruption and incompetence, I’m left with one simple question: how on earth did we end up here?

I, and others of my vintage, can remember a time before the water industry was privatised in 1989. Even then, our rivers were not in a pretty condition; dogged as they were by the legacy of heavy industry, alongside sewage pollution and other pressures. But this policy change seems to have piled on the agony in the intervening years. ​“The privatisation of water is a very much better deal for the consumer… it will be very much better for the environment,” Margaret Thatcher confidently asserted at the time. Successive governments, including the current iteration, would fail to correct this colossal error. Instead, they perpetuated a regulatory environment seemingly so lax that many (perhaps all) of the water companies were essentially free to do as they pleased.

As it turned out, this often meant disregarding the job for which they were paid by the public: treating our sewage. In amongst a swirling sea of mad decisions, operator self-monitoring – a system that allows water companies to ​“mark their own homework” in terms of reporting pollution incidents – is surely the shipwrecking pinnacle. Introduced in 2009 by the Environment Agency, under the chairmanship of the Rt Hon Lord Smith of Finsbury, this blunder has achieved precisely one thing: it has allowed water companies to spend 17 years grossly polluting our rivers. Absurdly, it still stands proud today, although we eagerly await its promised termination.

Dirty Business alleges that, contrary to the famous adage, this was down to malice rather than ineptitude. The series portrays misconduct that would have seemed implausible at the time, like Southern Water staff physically wresting sewage plant maintenance logs away from Environment Agency investigators. In 2019, the company was slammed with a £90 million fine for its long campaign of deliberately and knowingly polluting the environment, while obstructing and misleading regulators. Thanks to Peter Hammond unpicking Thames Water’s own sewage discharge data, we know that this company also repeatedly and systematically broke the law, while making rule-breaking dividend payments to its shareholders – actions that earned it an even larger £123 million fine. Dumping sewage, it seems, was just business as usual.

Tragically, this heinous behaviour continues. The most recent Environment Agency data show that sewage pollution incidents hit a record high in 2024. Raw sewage poured into rivers for 3.6 million hours that year, and Thames Water topped the charts with spills that lasted a revolting 13 hours on average. I cannot calculate the full ecological impact on our rivers, but I do know this: gallons of what is effectively fertiliser cannot be good news. If the load exceeds what river organisms are able to break down, the result is water choked by algae and sewage fungus. Then there are the ingredients that nature has no hope of handling – microplastics, medicines, sanitary items, and cleaning products. Add a toxic cocktail of pollutants from farming, roads, and forestry, and it’s little surprise that none of England’s waterbodies are meeting their chemical targets.

Where are the regulators in all of this? Dirty Business paints a ghastly picture of fundamentally dysfunctional management within the Environment Agency, rendering it incapable of truly holding water companies accountable, if it even wanted to. Our charity collaborates with the Environment Agency frequently, funded through its excellent fisheries and environment teams, and I have many friends within its ranks; all are committed, passionate, professional people who work hard to do their best for nature. But at some level of the bureaucratic machine, regulatory things seem to go awry.

The latest government data on wastewater company fines (covering 2016 – 2024) suggest that each company paid, on average, around £1.8 million in pollution fines per year, plus a further £200k in civil sanctions. Southern Water’s annual turnover is roughly £1 billion, and Thames Water’s is £2 billion. You can do the sums on how punitive such fines really are, in the context of those numbers. But the root cause of the regulators’ ineffectiveness remains a mystery: is it inattention, under-resourcing, collusion, disempowerment by the government, or something else entirely? Regarding the senior leaders, at least, Dirty Business seems sure that the answer lies somewhere between weakness and wilful complicity.

Several committed and knowledgeable people have told me that change is on the horizon for many water companies, as demonstrated by greater investment in environmental initiatives. And again, I know many passionate and committed people working in water companies who are dead keen to do the right thing. But this would require a huge course correction, and history suggests that many companies cannot, or will not, fix their problems – especially when the current regulatory framework will not compel them to do so.

In July 2025, the long-awaited Final Report of the Independent Water Commission proposed the creation of a new regulator that unites the functions of Ofwat, the Environment Agency, the Drinking Water Inspectorate, and Natural Resources Wales. It suggested that the 2025 Water (Special Measures) Act could be used to impose swifter and more frequent penalties on offending water companies. It called for the reformation (though sadly not the abolition) of operator self-monitoring. But the report stopped short of proposing root-and-branch reform, and was the poorer for it.

Around the same time, the People’s Commission on the Water Sector – in which four UK academics led a series of public consultations – published its own report. Some of the recommendations mirror those of its governmental counterpart: a new regulatory body, a national water strategy, and greater accountability for polluters. Others are comparatively radical: transparent monitoring data, public seats on water company boards, and the biggest ask of all – ​“an orderly process to transfer water companies into public ownership”.

The topic of nationalisation has become a sort of bogeyman for the water industry. It would no doubt prove immensely complicated, at least on an economic level. But it’s also true that the great privatisation experiment has been an unmitigated disaster for our rivers. In the 37 years since that fatal misstep, almost no other countries have adopted such a model. It’s tragic that we now have to weigh the cost to our wallets against the consequences of a dying water environment, all because that one decision has cast such a long shadow – Dirty Business indeed.

As for the Wild Trout Trust, we’ll continue to put our limited resources where they can do the most good. Our expertise lies in tackling the physical modifications that have been plaguing our rivers for centuries. Across the UK and Ireland, there’s scarcely a watercourse that hasn’t been moved, dammed, dredged, or straightened in some fashion, invariably to their detriment. While it seldom makes the headlines, government data show that this is one of the greatest threats facing our rivers; the second of an unholy trinity, alongside agricultural pollution in first place and sewage pollution taking the bronze medal.

So when it comes to water industry reform, we can usually be found strengthening the efforts of the many wonderful people who focus on campaigning about sewage pollution. Individual advocates, grassroots groups, river charities, and other bold souls are fighting hard against the intractable behemoth that is water companies and their regulatory overseers. Whenever our friends need our expertise, observations, or data, we’re always glad to support them. Meanwhile, our team works tirelessly to build the resilience of our nation’s embattled rivers – giving them the best possible chance of thriving, no matter what menaces come their way.

If you’ve yet to watch Dirty Business, I do recommend giving it a go. Serious though its subject matter may be, it also reminds us of the incredible things that can be achieved by those who really love our rivers. But one thing is for sure: there is a lot of cleaning up to do.