Self-monitoring regime will change to plug loophole that allowed failing sewage plants to pass pollution checks

Water firms “passed” thousands of pollution tests under a self-monitoring regime … yet the tests were never even conducted, the Observer can reveal. The water firms’ own operational data for sewage plants across the country reveals how outflows of effluent had stopped – in some cases for just a few hours – on days that samples were supposed to be taken.

Despite testers being unable to check whether firms were allowing too much pollution to flow into rivers, the Environment Agency rules allowed these “no-flows” to be recorded as compliant with the environmental conditions of their operating permits.