England's water companies failed to report more than 50,000 sewage spills in time, charity claims

Water companies in England failed to report more than 50,000 sewage spills within the time required by law in the first half of the year, an environmental charity has claimed.

The accusation by Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) has been disputed, with one of the country's nine suppliers questioning the group's methods.

In what it calls a "first-of-its-kind analysis", SAS alleged in its 2026 Water Quality Report that more than 4,000 of the delayed reports affected designated bathing waters, areas which are officially recognised for water use and monitored by the Environment Agency.

By law, water companies are only allowed to discharge sewage through storm overflows during heavy rainfall.

But according to SAS's report, sewage was discharged for at least 70,400 hours on dry days in the first six months of the year, based on freedom of information data.

The report claimed that 1,687 people told the charity via its Safer Seas and Rivers Service app that they got sick after using the water at rivers, lakes and beaches across the UK between January and August this year.

SAS claimed that this meant 5,222 work days, or around 20 years of full-time working days, have been lost as a result.

During what was the UK's hottest summer on record, 787 people reported getting sick after using the water across the numerous heatwaves between May and August, SAS said.

Giles Bristow, Surfers Against Sewage CEO, said: "Imagine checking for a sewage alert, heading out for a swim or a surf, and finding sewage has been pouring into the sea for hours. Your water company didn't report it. In England, we don't have to imagine it. We're living it."

But Yorkshire Water (YW), which the report claimed failed to publish discharge data in time for more than 13,000 sewage discharges, questioned the charity's research methods.

Pointing to its own figure of 4,490 discharges published later than one hour up until 7 October, it said it was regulated "by how we report to the National Storm Overflow Hub and to Ofwat, not by how or when SAS are notified".

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The spokesperson told Sky News the company has "been working closely with Ofwat since the end of 2024 to measure and improve our compliance in publishing storm overflow discharges to the National Storm Overflow Hub (NSOH) in the appropriate timeframe".

They added: "At the same time, we're making significant progress with our £1.5bn storm overflow discharge reduction programme, which will see us upgrading over 450 overflows by 2030."

A spokesperson for Water UK, which represents the water industry, said some of the delays may be down to the "extremely remote locations" of some monitors.

"No sewage spill is ever acceptable, and we are working to end them as fast as we physically can. That's why we are tripling investment over the next five years to halve spills from storm overflows and upgrade the capacity of 1,700 wastewater treatment works," the spokesperson said.

(c) Sky News 2026: England's water companies failed to report more than 50,000 sewage spills in time, charity clai