South West Water loses 113.5 million litres of water every day through leaking pipes — the equivalent of 45 Olympic swimming pools — and the problem is getting worse, not better. Leakage is 18.5% above forecast and 5.7 million litres per day higher than last year. Regulators from Ofwat, the Environment Agency, and DEFRA have written jointly to the company calling its performance 'not acceptable,' noting it has failed to meet leak reduction targets for seven consecutive years. The timing is brutal. About 82% of England remains in drought, with severe drought declared across Devon, Cornwall, Dorset, Somerset, East Sussex, and West Sussex. Roughly 325,000 people and thousands of businesses around Exeter and mid and east Devon face the real prospect of regular supply interruptions in coming weeks. The Met Office says 120% of typical rainfall over seven months is needed to end the drought. Wimbleball reservoir, a critical supply node for east Devon, north Devon, Somerset, and west Dorset, sits at just 16% capacity. The regulators' letter, dated 26 October, makes a pointed observation: the company is asking households to cut water use while failing to control its own network losses. South West Water has written to customers urging conservation but, according to the letter, does not acknowledge the contribution of its own leakage to the supply crisis. The regulators note that continued failure has 'reduced confidence' in the company's ability to avoid emergency river abstraction — a last resort that causes environmental damage. Devon county council leader Julian Brazil did not mince words. He described a crisis 'decades in the making,' pointing out that South West Water customers have paid the highest bills in England since privatisation in 1989. In return, the company has 'been busy continually polluting our bathing waters, busy losing nearly one in every five litres of water on its network and most busy paying out billions in dividends to its shareholders.' That last figure — roughly one in five litres lost — is the leakage rate baked into the network. The company has been given six weeks to produce an action plan. Its drought programme director, Richard Stanbrook, acknowledged 'pressure on supplies remains significant' and said the company is 'repairing leaks, moving water around our network.' The statement does not address the seven-year pattern of missed targets or the regulator's explicit finding that leakage has increased year-on-year. The government simultaneously announced the creation of eight new regional water councils designed to bring local leaders, customers, and businesses into priority-setting for water investment and flood infrastructure. Proposals for running these bodies are due by year-end. Whether they amount to genuine accountability or another layer of consultation remains to be seen. The structural picture is stark. A privatised monopoly serving 1.8 million people has extracted billions in shareholder dividends while allowing its core infrastructure to degrade to the point where a severe but foreseeable drought threatens basic supply. Customers bear both the cost — the highest bills in England — and the consequence. The regulator's seven-year patience with missed targets raises its own questions about enforcement.
