Action will be taken to hold water companies accountable for their failures, according to one MP in Lancashire.
Winter in Lancashire was marked by a number of high profile water-related incidents, including a significant outage in Bamber Bridge in January where residents were left without adequate water supply for a number of days.
At around the same time, a burst pipe in Burnley meant that around 2,000 homes were without running water
Read more: This article first appeared on The Lancashire Lead
There have been other less disruptive incidents across Lancashire in January and February where water supply was affected. United Utilities advised there had been a ‘slight’ rise in incidents year on year.
While this has an immediate impact on residents in terms of their water supply, a burst pipe can also cause significant damage to a road surface. When the burst pipe at Brindle Road happened in Bamber Bridge, the road was closed for around a week for repairs to take place.
That is something that will be particularly frustrating for drivers who already bemoan the state of Lancashire’s roads.
United Utilities, the water supplier for the region, has promised investment of more than £13bn over the next five years to improve its infrastructure and help to limit incidents such as this.
But that comes at a cost for the consumer, with water bills set to rise for the average home by 9% to £660 for the average home from 1 April 2026 to help fund the work.
And it comes at a time when United Utilities was blocked by regulator Ofwat from paying bonuses to its top bosses over serious pollution incidents and various performance issues.
Maya Ellis, Labour MP for the Ribble Valley, told Blog Preston: “I understand anger at the state of the water industry and rising bills, especially when we see people experiencing significant outages like Bamber Bridge residents did in January.
“At the time, I wrote to United Utilities on behalf of residents asking for confirmation that steps were being taken to prevent situations like this, where householders were left with lengthy interruptions to their water supply, again.
“I’ve been assured that learning from the incident is being incorporated into ongoing improvement work and that United Utilities continues to monitor the performance of the network to ensure the area has a resilient water supply.
“As people continue to face a cost-of-living crisis, it’s important that the water industry demonstrates value for money at the same time as investing in the infrastructure needed to meet the demands of the growing population and climate change.
“The government’s reform of the sector, laid out in the white paper ‘A new vision for water’, focuses on securing a fair deal for customers, investors and the environment and, importantly, rebuilding trust in the water system. This includes further actions to hold water companies, including United Utilities, to account and I’d urge residents to keep me informed of any issues so I can keep up the pressure for a better service.”
The UK government’s 2026 white paper, titled ‘A New Vision for Water’, introduces a new single regulator to replace Ofwat and the Drinking Water Inspectorate.
United Utilities said that by the end of the year it will have upgraded more than 25km of water mains across Lancashire, with a further 80km promised in 2027. They say they have already started work on seven wastewater treatment works at a cost of £103.5m, with more to come.
It promises a £104bn investment program from 2025-2030 to upgrade infrastructure, with a strong focus on addressing storm overflows – the most common cause of sewage entering water.
But there will be continued calls for water companies to be brought back into government control entirely. A YouGov poll in 2025 showed that 82% of the British public support public ownership of water companies.
This has an estimated cost of £99bn attached to it, but that number has been criticised given the debt levels of the water companies. The United Utilities Group has a debt of an estimated £11.3bn.
A United Utilities spokesperson said: “Over the next five years, we are investing more than £13bn to protect and enhance over 500km of rivers, lakes and bathing waters whilst safeguarding drinking water supplies for millions of customers.
“We appreciate that some of this work will impact the communities we serve but we will do our best to keep disruption to a minimum. The work we are doing over the next five years will help to create a more resilient Lancashire and benefit both communities and the environment.”
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