Successful two-year Turnaround Plan concludes for Southern Water

Significant reductions in pollutions, leaks and complaints have been welcomed, as our two-year intensive Turnaround Plan drew to a close. 

Our Final Update Report, published on Tuesday 15 July 2025, highlights how we have delivered a short sharp boost in performance over 24 months in the areas our customers have told us are most important to them.

Healthier rivers and seas

Our new 24/7 Control Centre now coordinates activity across the Southern Water network, using data from 32,000 digital sewer monitors to find faults before they become pollutions or floods. This has been the driving force behind total pollution figures dropping by more than 30% during the Turnaround Plan period.

At the same time, our Clean Rivers and Seas Task Force has continued to reduce storm overflows. Early investment in a series of sustainable drainage projects across our region saw us beat our 2024 storm overflow reduction target, and we continue to deliver on our £1.5 billion Clean Rivers and Seas Plan moving forward.

Reliable water supply

Over the past two years we’ve completed 103 improvement projects at our largest water supply works, investing a total of £150 million to improve the reliability of customer supplies – with a £330 million being spent this year in more key improvements.

We’ve also reduced overall leakage on our network: in 2024/25 alone, we achieved an 18% fall. Efforts to manage pressure better within our pipes have also driven down the number of bursts, outperforming our regulator’s target for mains repairs.

Trusted and easy customer service

Improvements such as a simplified and mobile-friendly website, and a new process to get our operational teams to problems faster, have helped continue to drive down customer complaints – at 25% down year-on-year.

And we are doing more to help those in need. New agreements with local authorities are helping us to auto-enrol eligible customers onto our cheaper bill rates, and we’ve increased the number of customers on our Priority Services Register to well over 300,000. 

What now? 

This progress, alongside steps forward in other key metrics including drinking water quality and internal and external floodings is a reflection of significant effort from all our people during this turnaround plan. It also reflects the record levels of capital investment in the network – at £977 million last year alone - and our decision to spend £1.5 billion more than the 2020-25 budget agreed with Ofwat. This resulted in an operating loss for the third consecutive year in 2024/25, as set out in our newly published Annual Report.

Our business and our people are now set up to execute our biggest ever investment programme which will improve our performance for the benefit of our communities and the environment. 

We are pleased to have the strong backing of our shareholders, who since joining in 2021 have injected £1.6 billion of equity into the group and on 1 July 2025 committed to another £655 million, with up to a further 545 to be committed by year end.

For the eighth consecutive year, no dividends were paid to external shareholders in 2024/25 and there are no plans to make any dividend payments until 2030 at the earliest.

CEO Lawrence Gosden said: 

“Our change has been rapid, guided by our Turnaround Plan, which since 2023 has delivered significant improvements in critical performance areas. The whole company, supported by its shareholders, is committed to building on the progress made, as we get on with delivering our largest ever investment over the next five years to make further improvements for customers and the environment.