Pembrokeshire MP says customers have already paid substantially more while the company’s environmental and operational performance has continued to fall

HENRY TUFNELL has launched a blistering attack on Welsh Water after its new chief executive suggested customers must either accept higher bills or wait longer for improvements to the company’s ageing infrastructure.

The Labour MP for Mid and South Pembrokeshire said Welsh Water “still don’t get it”, arguing that household bills have already risen sharply while the company’s performance has deteriorated.

In a video published on Friday (July 10), Mr Tufnell said customers were being asked to pay again for failures which had developed over many years.

He said: “The new chief executive of Welsh Water has said that if customers want better service, they will have to pay more.

“But bills have already been going up, while performance has been going down.

“In the last year alone, Welsh Water has been handed a £44.7 million penalty for serious failures in the way it manages sewage and wastewater.

“The public should not be asked to keep paying more while those at the top avoid responsibility.”

Alongside the video, Mr Tufnell wrote: “Their new chief exec says that bills must go up to improve their infrastructure. However, bills have been going up and their performance has gone down.

“As your MP, I have been working hard in Parliament to scrutinise our failing water sector, and I support the steps this government has taken to strip water bosses of their bonuses and fine underperformance.”

Higher bills or slower improvements

The row follows comments from Welsh Water’s new chief executive, Roch Cheroux, who said the company faced a choice between investing more to improve services quickly or taking longer to repair and modernise its network.

Mr Cheroux said years of under-investment and ageing infrastructure meant significant spending was required to reduce leaks, improve water quality and cut sewage discharges.

“We are at a point where we have a choice,” he said.

“We can invest more and improve faster, or take longer to get there.”

But Mr Tufnell argues that customers have already been presented with substantial increases without seeing the level of improvement they were promised.

Average Welsh Water household bills rose sharply in 2025 as the company began a five-year investment period. Senedd Research said average bills increased by around 27%, with an overall rise of approximately 42% expected by 2030.

Welsh Water then announced a further 4.8% increase for 2026-27, taking its stated average annual household bill from £652 to £683.

Individual bills vary significantly depending on whether a property has a meter, its rateable value and whether the customer receives water, sewerage or both services.

The increases are intended to support an investment programme which Welsh Water says is needed to replace ageing pipes, improve treatment works, reduce pollution and make supplies more resilient.

However, the rises come against a backdrop of repeated regulatory criticism.

‘Lagging behind’ for four consecutive years

Ofwat’s most recent published company performance assessment ranked Welsh Water as “lagging behind” for the fourth consecutive year.

The company was performing worse than its target in seven of the 12 areas assessed.

Natural Resources Wales also maintained Welsh Water’s two-star environmental rating, meaning that the company “requires improvement”, for a third consecutive year.

Regulators recorded 155 water supply and sewerage pollution incidents attributed to Welsh Water during 2024, including six serious incidents. It was the highest number of incidents recorded for the company in a decade.

Welsh Water has said its storm overflow figures improved during 2025, with the total number of hours in which overflows operated falling by around 18%.

However, sewage discharges across Wales remained extensive. Analysis of published monitoring data by The Rivers Trust recorded 94,974 discharges during 2025, lasting a combined 777,545 hours.

Storm overflows are intended to prevent homes and businesses being flooded when sewage systems are overwhelmed by rainwater. An overflow activation does not automatically mean that a company has acted illegally, and the monitoring data does not show the volume or precise contents of each discharge.

Nevertheless, campaigners argue that the frequency and duration of their operation demonstrate that the sewer network is routinely unable to cope.

Analysis of Welsh Water monitoring data by the campaign website Top of the Poops estimated that overflows within the Mid and South Pembrokeshire constituency operated 5,944 times during 2025, for a combined 56,669 hours.

The figures cover 104 monitored locations and include discharges affecting rivers, streams, estuaries and coastal waters across the constituency.

£44.7 million enforcement package

Pressure on Welsh Water intensified in June when Ofwat confirmed a £44.7 million enforcement package after finding “serious and unacceptable” failures in the company’s wastewater operations.

The regulator found that Welsh Water had failed to properly operate, maintain and upgrade sewage treatment works and sewer networks so that they could cope with the amount of wastewater entering the system.

It also identified inadequate company processes and insufficient oversight by senior management.

The action is sometimes described as a fine, but it is technically an enforceable package of undertakings. The money is not paid to the Treasury.

Welsh Water must instead spend £40.6 million on work to reduce spills, address groundwater entering the sewer network and limit environmental damage.

A further £4.1 million must be spent on improving river quality in environmentally sensitive catchments.

The package is to be funded by the company rather than being added to customer bills.

It followed separate action in 2024, when Welsh Water agreed a £40 million redress package after Ofwat concluded that the company had misled customers and regulators about its performance on leakage and household water consumption.

Welsh Water defends investment programme

Welsh Water insists that significant progress cannot be delivered without major investment.

The company operates as a not-for-profit business with no shareholders. It says financial surpluses are reinvested in services, infrastructure and support for customers rather than being distributed as dividends.

Welsh Water says it invested £617 million in its water and wastewater network during 2025-26, including £134 million on environmental improvements and £120 million on water quality and network resilience.

Its wider programme proposes more than £4 billion of investment between 2025 and 2030, including around £2.5 billion on environmental work.

Mr Cheroux, who formally became chief executive at the beginning of 2026, has also begun a major company transformation programme intended to improve performance, restructure the organisation and develop a new long-term strategy.

The company’s position is that the cost of upgrading thousands of miles of underground pipes, sewers and treatment infrastructure must ultimately be recovered through customer bills.

Critics, however, say Welsh Water must demonstrate that the additional money will produce measurable improvements rather than asking customers to accept repeated increases based on future promises.

Tufnell backs tougher action against water bosses

Mr Tufnell, who serves on the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, said he had been using his position in Parliament to scrutinise the water industry.

The Water (Special Measures) Act introduced powers allowing Ofwat to block bonuses for senior executives where companies fail to meet environmental, customer service or financial standards.

The legislation also introduced potential criminal liability for executives who obstruct regulatory investigations or conceal illegal sewage discharges.

Mr Tufnell said: “For too long, water companies have been allowed to underperform while customers pick up the bill.

“That has to change.

“We have introduced legislation to stop bonuses being paid to the bosses of failing water companies and to make senior executives criminally accountable when they cover up wrongdoing.

“Welsh Water must now invest properly in its infrastructure, clean up our rivers and seas and give customers the service they are already paying for.”

Pembrokeshire waterways under pressure

The MP said protecting Pembrokeshire’s rivers, coastline and estuaries was not simply a national political issue but an immediate local concern.

He highlighted his work with The Cleddau Project and Surfers Against Sewage, both of which have campaigned for improved monitoring, stronger enforcement and faster action to protect local waterways.

Mr Tufnell said: “Locally, I am proud to work with community groups like The Cleddau Project and Surfers Against Sewage to collectively protect our waterways.

“I am committed to protecting and restoring our county’s beautiful waterways.”

The central question facing Welsh Water is no longer whether its infrastructure requires investment. The company, regulators, politicians and environmental groups broadly agree that it does.

The dispute is over who should bear the cost, how quickly improvement should be delivered and why customers should trust Welsh Water to produce better results after years of rising bills, regulatory intervention and declining performance.

For households in Pembrokeshire, Mr Tufnell’s message is clear: customers have already paid more, and Welsh Water must now prove it can deliver.

PEMBROKESHIRE’S new Conservative county councillor, who won a seven-way battle for the Pembroke Dock Market ward seat, has said he is “fully focussed on representing everyone in Market Ward and being a strong voice for Pembroke Dock”.

The seat was made vacant following the death of veteran councillor Brian Hall.

Before he passed away in April, Councillor Brian Hall had held the Pembroke Dock Market ward seat since 1996.

Since that seat became vacant, seven hopefuls put their names forward to represent the Market ward, with an election being held on July 9, the results announced the following morning.

The election for the ward, which has an electorate of 1,442 voters, saw a 28 per cent turnout.

Winner was Welsh Conservatives candidate Jamie Street with 143 votes, approximately 36 per cent of all votes cast.

Second place, with 100 votes, went to Independent candidate Claire Francis-Boswell, who can be commiserated by recently becoming a town council member for the very same ward.

Other candidates, and their share of the votes, were: Chloe Louise Richards, Plaid Cymru, 79 votes; Ryan Morgan, Reform UK, 48; Paul Haywood Dowson, Independent, 11; Lee Herring, Welsh Liberal Democrats, nine; Hayley Wood, Independent, seven.

Following his win, Jamie said: “I would like to sincerely thank everyone who placed their trust in me by voting in this election.

“It is a tremendous honour and a privilege to have been elected as the county councillor for the Market Ward, I will work hard to repay that confidence.

“I would also like to thank my fellow candidates for running a positive and respectful campaign.

“Now the campaign is over, I am fully focussed on representing everyone in Market Ward and being a strong voice for Pembroke Dock.

“Throughout the campaign I promised to listen to residents, stand up for our community and work tirelessly to secure the investment, opportunities and improvements our area deserves.

“I am eager to get started on the many issues you told me on the doorstep and will do everything I can to achieve the very best outcomes for local people.”

PLANS for 5G Vodafone telecommunications works at Haverfordwest’s telephone exchange have been refused on the grounds of the impact on the town’s conservation area.

In an application to Pembrokeshire County Council, Reading-based Cellnex UK, through agent WHP Telecoms Ltd sought permission for the installation of replacement telecommunications apparatus and ancillary equipment at Haverfordwest exchange on Perrotts Avenue.

The works proposed included the removal of the existing antenna and the installation of six antennas.

A supporting statement said the application for the rooftop of the existing three-storey Haverfordwest Telephone Exchange, was for a 5G mobile base station for the mobile network operator Vodafone Ltd in conjunction with Cornerstone; the site owned and operated by Cellnex UK, a radio site infrastructure provider.

It added: “The proposal seeks to upgrade the existing equipment in situ to ensure that Vodafone Ltd. customers continue to benefit from modern and reliable connectivity. The current equipment has not been upgraded for a number of years and now requires significant modernisation to support the latest wireless technologies and meet the needs of both customers and the wider community.”

It went on to say: “Unlike earlier generations of mobile connectivity, 5G has more significant technical and operational requirements and this has implications on the amount, height, position and design of the apparatus on the rooftop of this building.

“The service provided by the operator is in the public interest and is in very high demand, with 5G being the next and highly significant advancement in mobile connectivity. In the UK there are now more almost 92.5 million subscriptions to mobile networks and mobile services now exceed fixed landlines in terms of customer numbers and usage.”

An officer report recommending refusal said: “The siting and design of the development are considered to be insensitive, incongruous, and harmful to the character and appearance of the Haverfordwest Conservation Area. The proposal fails to preserve or enhance the significance of the designated heritage asset, contrary to the fundamental objectives of sustainable development.”

It added: “While the proposed masts are of a broadly comparable height to the previously approved [2007] installation, the current proposal materially differs in both form and visual impact. In particular, the introduction of three separate telecommunications masts to facilitate 5G infrastructure results in a more prominent and visually intrusive arrangement that is not considered to be subservient to the host building, unlike the previously approved tubed apparatus.”

The application was refused on grounds including the visual impact and no biodiversity enhancement measures included as part of the proposed scheme.