Caroline Voaden: So long to sewage dumping CEO

Last week, Susan Davy retired, ending a sorry tenure as CEO of South West Water where she oversaw shocking levels of sewage spills, plummeting customer confidence, and a water contamination event that sent people to hospital.

For many, her decision should have come a lot sooner. 

Indeed, what’s staggering when you examine Ms Davy’s tenure is how many failures there were that could result in a CEO’s removal, with the cryptosporidium outbreak in Brixham being the most obvious example. 

The calibre of a CEO is often shown in how they respond to a crisis. On this front, Ms Davy’s skills were sorely lacking. Not only did SWW fail to issue a boil water notice until 24 hours after they identified cryptosporidium in the water, but during the crisis, she also hid from the media. 

During her appearance before the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs Committee in February, she explained this decision, saying: “The best reassurances I thought I could give customers at that point was to make sure that they were getting all the information they needed from our incident director and from the customers services director.”

Having spoken to affected residents, I know her absence increased the confusion and distress many felt. When she did finally apologise in May this year, Ms Davy said she had suffered “sleepless nights” as Brixham and Kingswear residents dealt with the outbreak. 

I’m sure I’m not the only one who was galled by this statement, given Ms Davy thought it was appropriate to accept a pay rise of £300,000 less than a month after the outbreak. 

Before the EFRA Committee, Ms Davy said customers were SWW’s top priority. Nothing from their work during the cryptosporidium outbreak suggests this to be true. Nor do their efforts on sewage pollution. 

All sewage companies are expected to have no more than 22.4 pollution incidents per 10,000 kilometres of sewer. SWW recorded nearly five times that in 23/24.

Just last week, SWW agreed to pay a £24m penalty for illegal sewage discharges into the environment from its treatment works. In an absolutely damning report, the Water Services Regulation Authority said 54 per cent of SWW’s wastewater treatment works storm overflows had spilled on 20 or more occasions between 2020 and 2024. 

Anyone who enjoys going to the beach or rivers will know the disgusting consequences of SWW’s negligible approach to wastewater treatment. Sadly, in June, an overflow from one of SWW’s treatment works resulted in the deaths of thousands of fish in a Cornish river. 

Following Ofwat’s report, I joined my Liberal Democrat colleagues in writing to Ms Davy to say we had lost confidence in her position and wanted her and the board to step down. Less than a day later, Ms Davy was gone. 

This announcement will come as a relief to customers across South Devon who have been repeatedly let down by SWW spoiling our precious waterway whilst hiking water bills. 

But let’s be clear, for whoever sits at the helm, the executive board at SWW must clean up their act. They cannot continue to neglect their duty to the public and the environment with impunity. 

That is why the Liberal Democrats believe the Government must abolish Ofwat and replace it with a regulator that can hold SWW to account. 

SWW will soon have a new CEO and their job will be to regain the trust from policymakers and customers which has been so terribly eroded in the past five years. 

I look forward to meeting the new CEO of SWW when they are announced, and I hope they can learn from the systemic mistakes Ms Davy made throughout her time in post.