Anglian Water has been found guilty of failing, without reasonable excuse, to comply with a requirement to provide records to the Environment Agency.  

The case has now been adjourned until July 5 for a sentencing hearing at Peterborough Magistrates’ Court. 

The Environment Agency says it brought the case against Anglian Water Services Ltd following a wider criminal investigation involving all water companies.  

It had been looking into potential non-compliance with environmental permit conditions at over 2,000 wastewater treatment works.  

And since launching the investigation, the Environment Agency says it served Anglian Water Services Ltd with several statutory requirements for company records. 

Now Anglian Water has been convicted of failing, without reasonable excuse, to respond to one of these notices, served under Section 108 of the Environment Act 1995, contrary to Section 110(2)(a) of the Environment Act 1995 between dates in January 2022 and January 2023.  

The company had entered a not guilty plea to the charge, claiming that they had a reasonable excuse for the non-compliance.  

However, having heard the evidence in the case, district judge Kenneth Sheraton rejected that claim. 

In response to the same case, Anglian Water issued a statement clarifying it was also found not guilty on two other counts of failing to provide data to the Environment Agency.  

The company says the judge commented that the Environment Agency had acted unreasonably in failing to respond to correspondence from Anglian Water over the matters. 

An Anglian Water spokesperson said: “We’re pleased the judge has said our course of action and time taken to respond with surrogate data to the Environment Agency was reasonable.  

“These were the two most serious allegations for obstruction.” 

He added: “On the third count, we have received the judge’s draft sentencing remarks and will now take the opportunity to review the basis of sentence.”