Understanding the impact of the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025

By Dave Walker, Global Future Trends Director

I’ve taken a keen interest, and its importance across the water industry, in the bill that led to the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 since it was first introduced by the House of Lords in November 2024.

The fact that it boosts the powers of water sector regulators, such as the Environment Agency, to tackle pollution is set to have a significant impact on the water industry and how water and sewage companies (WASCs) will be held to account in relation to concerns about pollution, underinvestment, and illegal sewage spills.

The Act introduces stringent measures to improve transparency, compliance, and environmental stewardship across the sector, something that is broadly welcomed by water companies. Furthermore, it undoubtedly delivers on the government’s commitment to put failing water companies under special measures, something that customers have demanded for some time.

Having followed this landmark legislation so closely, I arranged a breakfast briefing with Clive Betts MP and fellow industry peers at Portcullis House (two days after the Act was given Royal Assent) to discuss what impact it might have. The briefing provided an excellent opportunity to highlight how, at Detectronic, we’re actively working with Government and industry peers in educating stakeholders to achieve the objectives of Sections 81 and 82 of the Environment Act 2022 and discuss how these two Sections might be regulated in the next Asset Management Plan AMP8 2025 -2030.

Attendees included:

• Clive Betts MP
• Tong Sun, Professor of Sensor Engineering at the School of Science and Technology of City, University of London                   
• Dr Steven Schofield, Associate Professor at the London Centre for Nanotechnology, Faculty of Maths & Physical Sciences
•  Professor Simon Tait School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering; Professor of Water Engineering
• Mike Williamson MBE, Director of Water Services Division at Adler and Allan
• Mark Bannister Group CCO Adler & Allan
• John Curtin, former CEO of The Environment Agency
• Michael Dooley Managing Director of Dooley Consulting
• Revd Dave Walker, global future trends director for Detectronic and Chair

Why Section 81 and Section 82 are so relevant to the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025?

To fully comprehend what the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 means for the water industry, we must first understand why these two specific sections of the Environment Act 2021 are so significant.

Section 81 stipulates that storm overflow discharges in England must be reported, including their location and where the discharge begins and ends. It mandates that water companies enhance their Event Duration Monitoring (EDM) programs in the upcoming Asset Management Plan (AMP), with an emphasis on data transparency. This will involve ensuring traceability and trust by choosing dependable technology that provides that assurance. The Environment Agency’s MCERTs EDM Standard will be crucial in ensuring transparency is achieved with confidence.

As Section 81 is a proven and established area in both technology and implementation, early investments in this sector will be seen as offering strong value for money to customers and provide an easy ODI gain early in the AMP. Expediting efforts in this key area presents a straightforward win for WASCs and their customers.

An opportunity to restore public trust and deliver cost benefits

The public’s level of trust in water companies was at an all-time low over the last AMP. What’s more, it is widely known that water company bosses have been awarded big bonuses despite water pollution increasing. As such, if activity in this area can be expedited it could have a big impact across entire water industry.

Fast-tracking Section 81 will effectively demonstrate to the public that the government and WASCs are dedicated to tackling pollution discharges, helping to rebuild trust and deliver cost benefits to customers.

Section 82 requires sewerage undertakers to continuously monitor the quality of the receiving water upstream and downstream of their assets. This will allow sewerage undertakers to assess the impact of discharges from their assets on the receiving watercourse.

In comparison to Section 81, Section 82 is a less developed market in terms of technology and expertise. As such, there is an urgent need for innovation and education at every WASCA and every regulator level before its implementation can successfully be progressed. Knowledge sharing across the industry will go a long way to addressing this, but we must also focus on enhancing data transparency using real-time monitoring and reporting on sewage discharges, including previously unmonitored emergency overflows.

The Act also stipulates that water companies must install and certify monitoring equipment at all emergency overflows, with phased implementation by 2035. We can support this by:

• Ensuring that all monitors that are installed are certified to meet Environment Agency’s Monitoring Certification Scheme (MCERTS) requirements
• Facilitating widespread real-time data collection and robust analytics to support near-instant reporting on discharges
• Using predictive analytics and AI-driven insights to aid WASCs to help anticipate any potential overflows and prevent pollutions

Wider acknowledgement required

During the briefing, we agreed that it might be understood, but it is not widely acknowledged, that the technology that is currently available has a high level of uncertainty, potentially exceeding 20% , and does not fully meet the requirements of Section 82. Specifically, there is no direct measurement for ammonia without complex calibration of the ammonium sensor.

This is a problem that will take considerable time to address and rectify. Our universal recommendation, therefore, is that the delivery of Section 82 is slowed down at the start of the next AMP whilst making sure that the commitment of 25% of all discharge points being monitored accurately and reliably by the target date of 2030 is respected.

Following the meeting at Portcullis House, UK Water Industry Research (UKWIR) has launched a request for expressions of interest to investigate technology and approaches for Section 82 monitoring. The report is expected to be released after 2027, thus advancing this part of the Environment Act prematurely could lead to considerable costs.

Take time to assess and test the new technology

To this point, there is new technology on the horizon that will eventually solve the ammonia issue, but it needs assessing and testing extensively in field before it can be offered to the open market. WASCs would, therefore, be wise to exercise caution in relation to the hasty delivery of Section 82 because investment now may prove to be inefficient and costly because the existing equipment that isn’t fit for purpose. For example, at the SWIG conference in January 2025 it was noted that the estimated annual OPEX for Section 82 for one of the UK’s larger WASCs was projected to exceed £300 million. Budget rethinking for this water company, and potentially some of it peers, is urgently required otherwise money will be wasted.

So, what can we do in the meantime? Testing the existing technology more thoroughly and helping industry colleagues to better understand the potential problems surrounding it and its deployment is crucial. We know that WASCs are genuinely concerned about ensuring they get everything right and to do so they require clear guidance, and guidance from government not commercial entities.

An important note about monitoring

In 2019 no surface water bodies met the criteria for achieving good chemical status under the Water Environment (Water Framework Directive) Regulations, compared with 97% of surface water bodies passing in 2016. Why was this?

The reason behind this dramatic shift was the introduction of new, more accurate sampling and analysis methods, as well as the inclusion of extra substances identified as persistent, bioaccumulate and toxic, in the chemical quality assessment. Improved sampling accuracy + improved analysis methods = enhanced knowledge and the required insight to ‘fix’ the problem.

It must be stated that if millions of pounds were to be invested in improvements—whether through water companies, farm regulation, or farm subsidies—the government will still have limited capacity to assess the success of these investments without proper monitoring. As outlined above, until we have robust and accurate monitoring in place that is certified to MCERTS requirements, the data needed to ascertain whether any investment has been worthwhile is almost impossible.

Detectronic had similar drivers and challenges when developing the LIDoTT® EDM, a low cost EDM monitor which it has spent the last five years developing. The objective of this extensive research and development project was to create an EDM monitor (MCERTS) that can be widely deployed across large catchment areas in an extremely cost effective and efficient way. The cost of such monitoring is minimal in comparison to the overall investments but can yield significant returns by making small adjustments that will ultimately enhance the effectiveness of these investments in the long-term. If it’s achievable for EDM Section 81, I’m confident we can apply the same approach to Water Quality Monitoring and Section 82, though it will take time.

In summary

The rapid adoption of the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 clearly demonstrates that the government is now taking water pollution seriously. Water companies welcome the Act, as do we and all who attended the briefing.

Our collective next steps must be continued collaborative working to ensure that WASCs  and their supply chain are focusing on the right things, at the right time and are doing precisely what is expected of them.

At the same time, it is important to know that the regulators are also moving in the right direction and have the correct, robust evidence to stand their ground if they do have to bring a prosecution.

It was agreed that we all must continue to invest in specialist research and development to both test and create new technologies that can provide unrivalled monitoring accuracy, reporting and insight. It is reassuring for me to know that, thanks to our company-wide expertise in monitoring technology, pollution mitigation, sustainability consulting, and nature-based solutions, both Detectronic and Adler and Allan are several steps ahead in respect to the demands of both Sections 81 and 82.

We’re already assisting water companies to achieve regulatory compliance with monitoring equipment that has achieved MCERTS and providing them with data science and analytics that are enabling them to drive smarter decisions. So quick wins are readily available and easily achievable with minimum investment early on in the new AMP.