By Alastair Chisholm, CIWEM’s Director of Policy

After yet another bruising week for the water industry, future ownership and governance of water and sewerage companies remains high up the agenda. What are the options? What would rebuild trust? What might political parties advocate at a general election, asks Alastair Chisholm

In a scathing House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee hearing this week, common themes were that the water industry financial engineering that the has so appalled observers and the public and brought the sector into such disrepute occurred largely prior to 2017; that the performance failures which are at least partly down to a corporate culture of profit over investment are only really playing out now, and that the solutions are both expensive and long-term.

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In a separate piece, Peter Simpson, CEO at Anglian Water spoke to CIWEM policy director Alastair Chisholm about sewage, how to restore public trust in water companies and how a landscape-scale approach to managing water is the future.