United Utilities has maintained that it takes its environmental responsibilities "very seriously", releasing a statement as such after revealing an almost 20% increase in annual profits, days after engulfed in a "scandal" involving a massive sewage spill.
The water corporation recorded a significant jump of 17.5% in underlying operating profits for the financial year ending on March 31st. Their earnings rounded up to an impressive £517.8million. The group asserted: "We take our environmental commitments very seriously and are proud to have a sector-leading track record on minimising pollution for over a decade."
But on Wednesday, a fresh row broke out over the state of England’s waters after reports that millions of litres of raw sewage were pumped into Windermere in the Lake District. Documents from United Utilities seen by the BBC showed that a fault at a pumping station in Bowness-on-Windermere in Cumbria left sewage being illegally pumped into the famous lake for 10 hours in February.
This incident sparked outrage among opposition politicians who called it a "scandal". Downing Street said it was "completely unacceptable", emphasising the Environment Agency has the power to instigate a criminal prosecution if deemed necessary. United Utilities announced on Wednesday that the spill was due to an unknown failure in the third party telecoms cable network around the area, a problem that United Utilities were not previously alerted about and which disruptively affected both their primary system and backup operations.
The company said: "Engineers took urgent steps to resolve the situation and we informed the Environment Agency within an hour of the pollution being confirmed". In a statement released with its annual results on Thursday, United Utilities announced plans to fast-track approximately £400million in system upgrades to tackle overflows at over 150 storm sites.
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The group added it was moving to "accelerate environmental schemes in communities such as Windermere, where we are fast-tracking investment to drive improvements earlier".
United Utilities' chief executive Louise Beardmore said: "We take our role in protecting the environment very seriously; our ambitious business plan would see us investing more than ever before to improve services across the five counties of the North West. This would deliver a genuine step-change in infrastructure for the benefit of customers and the environment, and support 30,000 jobs."
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