A court has ordered Anglian Water to pay more than £50,000 for failing to provide records requested by the Environment Agency as part of an environmental investigation.
The order includes a £25,000 fine, £190 victim surcharge and £25,000 in costs and, according to the Environment Agency, is the first conviction of its kind.
The Environment Agency had been looking into potential non-compliance with environmental permit conditions at over 2,000 wastewater treatment works at water companies.
While looking into Anglian Water Service Ltd’s compliance, it served the company with several statutory requirements for records.
Yet it was convicted of failing, without reasonable excuse, to respond to one of these notices, served between dates in January 2022 and January 2023.
The company had entered a not guilty plea to the charge, claiming it had a reasonable excuse for non-compliance.
District Judge Kenneth Sheraton rejected this.
Meanwhile, Anglian Water explained in a statement that ahead of sentencing the judge had already declared it was not guilty of two more serious charges.
The statement said: “Anglian Water has always maintained, and the judge concurred, that our course of action and time taken to respond with data to the Environment Agency was reasonable.
“This was reflected in the fact that we were found not guilty of the two main charges.
“While we are disappointed with the finding in relation to the first charge, the low level of sentence reflects our view that this was not a significant failure on our part.”
The Environment Agency hopes that the sentence will help the regulator to bring all water companies into compliance and reduce environmental pollution.
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