Southern Water bosses decline bonuses after sewage discharge anger

Southern Water bosses have opted not to take bonuses following criticism of the company's sewage discharge record.

The company has faced calls from campaigners not to award bonuses until sea water quality improved.

Chief executive Lawrence Gosden and chief financial officer Stuart Ledger have both declined a bonus for the year to March 2023, the company announced in its annual report.

"We know that we have more to do," Mr Gosden said.

Executives at Thames, Yorkshire and South West Water have already announced they will not be taking their bonuses because of poor performances.

Southern Water also announced that its net financing costs had increased by more than 40% to £278.6m in the year to 1 April.

As a result, the utility company is trying to raise £550m from shareholders to help maintain a "prudent gearing ratio".

Mr Ledger said it had been a "challenging financial year, with above-inflation rises".

He said: "We recognise that this is a challenging time for our customers, with a cost-of-living crisis and above-inflationary costs impacting both households and businesses, so we have increased our support package significantly, almost halving the bill for over 113,000 households."

Southern Water was fined a record £90m for deliberately dumping billions of litres of raw sewage into the sea in 2021.

The company serves East Kent, parts of Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

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