A major water contamination incident in Devon last year that affected thousands of homes has pushed up costs by £36m for the utilities firm responsible for the outbreak.
Exeter-based Pennon, which owns South West Water, Bristol Water, Bournemouth Water and SES Water, said on Monday (March 31) its reshaping and transformation programme had left it with a hefty bill.
In May last year, the diarrhoea-inducing cryptosporidium was discovered in a reservoir, prompting 17,000 households in Brixham to boil their drinking water for eight weeks. Pennon was compelled to clean and flush its water network 27 times, in addition to replacing sections of its grid.
In its latest trading update, the company said EBITDA - a measure of performance - was broadly flat for the year ending March 31, 2025, with lower customer demand and inflationary cost pressures, offset by a reshaping and restructuring programme.
Capital expenditure was comparable with the H1 2024/25 run rate. Pennon's full-year results, which will be announced on June 3, remain in line with management expectations, the firm said.
There were 194 individual pollution incidents across the Pennon group between 2023 and 2024, and the company was fined £2.2m in 2023 for illegal sewage spills spanning four years across Devon and Cornwall.
Last month, Pennon's chief executive, Susan Davy, told a group of MPs she had “regret” for the pollution incidents and admitted that "from time to time things do go wrong".
“I absolutely regret and do not condone those incidents and pollutions that we had. We do not want to harm the environment, that is not the activities that we undertake everyday," she said at the time.
Last November, the firm revealed that its underlying pre-tax profit had plummeted from a £19.1m profit in the first half of last year to an £18.6m loss.
