Thames Water boss grilled over ‘inadequate’ Bucks sewage works but refuses to answer

Councillor Robert Carington said Thames Water sewage plants ‘lack the pipes and tanks to possess enough wastewater’, leading to spillages into watercourses.

Speaking during Thursday’s transport, environment and climate change committee meeting, he referenced work by the Financial Times showing that 16 of the sewage treatment plants in Buckinghamshire are rated inadequate, with two adequate and five unknown.

He said: “The very concerning one is that a lot of the actual pipe networks don’t have data, so this figure might be a lot higher. Apparently 30 per cent of your sewage network is not mapped. So, I am just wondering if you have any comments or information?”

Jake Morley, Thames Water’s ‘lead for local government for Thames Valley North’, said Councillor Carington’s comments would have to be dealt with ‘offline’, but added that ‘a lot’ of the firm’s network was unmapped.

He also said Thames Water was still ‘discovering’ its network, in part due to the privatisation of water, and added that the company’s asset team would be better placed to answer.

But Councillor Carington replied it was a ‘real killer’ that the FT had used the firm’s own data, to which Mr Morley again said he was not best placed to answer.

Mr Morley earlier told the committee Thames Water was spending £1.12 billion on sewage treatment works in 2024 and 2025, including money to improve resilience and capacity.

In the Financial Times piece, it was argued that Thames Water’s sewage plants were not capable of dealing with the high amounts of waste water produced.