We completed 11 schemes to reduce the risk of internal flooding to 18 properties and external flooding to 65 areas, including gardens and roads. This brings the total since 2005 to 109 schemes, helping to prevent internal flooding at 230 properties and external flooding in 303 areas.

The appointment of a dedicated pollution strategy team to look at hotspots, trends and causes was one of the initiatives introduced to help prevent blocked or collapsed sewers. We also improved the management of our pumping stations, proactively investigated and maintained rural sewer networks, installed sewer level monitoring equipment and enhanced pollution response processes.

We installed 200 sewer level monitors across the region in high-risk pollution areas to give us an early warning of high flows or blockages and, to improve operational focus, a duty manager system was implemented in our regional control room, enabling us to better monitor our sites and respond quicker to incidents.

We began work to build a new pumping station to help prevent sewer flooding in Portsmouth.