The region’s water company has seen turnover and pre-tax profits rise in a year that has seen its “best-ever leakage performance”.
Results for the year to 31 March 2024, released yesterday, show turnover at Severn Trent rose eight per cent from £2.17 billion in 2023 to £2.34 billion, driven mainly by higher revenues in the firm’s regulated water and wastewater business.
Pre-tax profits jumped 20 per cent from £168 million in 2023 to £201 million.
The company invested £1.2 billion during the year, a 63 per cent increase year-on-year, and it has said it is accelerating investment in 900 storm overflows this year as it works to reduce average spill rate.
Chief Executive Liv Garfield said: “I’m proud of the performance our brilliant teams have delivered this year, whether for our customers, the environment or the wider region. We have achieved our best ever leakage performance and we’re very confident of keeping the highest 4* status from the Environment Agency for an unprecedented fifth consecutive year.
We’re also driving innovation across our sector, with new technology at our Strongford treatment works eliminating all of the site’s carbon emissions.
“The extra £1bn we raised from our investors will help us continue to transform the network, reducing spills, improving river health and providing our customers with the best and most reliable service.
“Following extensive work to test and trial solutions, just last week we unveiled plans to deliver storm overflow solutions across 900 locations in the Midlands this year, and a dedicated 300-strong team are now installing c. 1,000 capital schemes which, once finished, will see a reduction of 20% of spills per year.
“We are planning record levels of investment in the coming years, while also keeping bills the second lowest in the country. Our customers and the communities in which they live are at the heart of our business and we’re doing more than ever to ensure we have a positive economic, environmental and social impact across our region.”
Severn Trent has a wastewater treatment works at Strongford, near Stoke-on-Trent, and was fined just over £2 million by the Environment Agency (EA) in February this year for allowing raw sewage to discharge into the River Trent from there between November 2019 and February 2020.
The Chief Executive’s review states: “Our operational failings at the site led to a risk of environmental harm, which is unacceptable. We reported the event to the EA at the first opportunity and worked transparently with the EA throughout their investigation, delivering a number of improvements to prevent issues of this kind occurring in the future.”
At the same site, a £40 million investment has been installed to eliminate all its carbon emissions.
A summit is due to be held there in coming months to share technologies and practices.
Severn Trent’s Net Zero Hub, based on the same site, will use this blueprint to apply low emission interventions across its estate as part of work towards operational net zero by 2030.
