Severn Trent


Severn Trent plc is a water company based in the United Kingdom that is traded on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. Severn Trent, the trading name owned by the company, applies to a group of companies employing more than 15,000 people across the United Kingdom, United States and mainland Europe, with some involvement in the Middle East.
The main companies in the group are Severn Trent Water and Severn Trent Services. Severn Trent Laboratories was rebranded as part of Severn Trent Services in 2010, to streamline the company and give it a single worldwide image, rather than a series of separate organisations with different identities. As with all water companies in the United Kingdom, Severn Trent is regulated under the Water Industry Act 1991.

History

was established in 1974, through the amalgamation of existing water supply authorities, the Severn River Authority, the Trent River Authority and the sewage and sewage disposal responsibilities of the councils within its area.
In July 1989, the authority was privatised under the Water Act 1989, together with the rest of the water industry in England and Wales, to form Severn Trent Water, with a responsibility to supply freshwater and treat sewage for around 8 million people living in the Midlands of England and also a small area of Wales.
It took its name from the two major rivers in this area, the Severn and the Trent. In May 1991, it went on to acquire Biffa, a leading waste management business. In October 2006, Biffa was de merged from the group Severn Trent, and is now listed separately on the London Stock Exchange. In January 2007, the American side of Severn Trent Laboratories was sold to HIG Capital.
In September 2007, the company announced they would be closing its headquarters in Birmingham and relocating to a custom built office complex in the centre of the Coventry in the autumn of 2010.
In June 2016, Severn Trent Water and United Utilities formed Water Plus in preparation for the water market deregulation, to provide the retail services for their non household customers, after being granted approval by the Competition & Markets Authority.

Operations

The company supplies about 4.5 million households and businesses in its area. Severn Trent Water has a call centre in Coventry, dealing with operational emergencies and billing enquiries, and two other call centres in Derby and Shrewsbury, which deal solely with billing enquiries. Its head office is the new custom built Severn Trent Centre in Coventry.

Regulation and criticism

In July 2007, the Mythe Water Treatment Works near Tewkesbury became inundated with water from the River Severn during the Summer 2007 United Kingdom floods. The water coming into the plant was contaminated, and this led to the loss of all running water for approximately 150,000 people in Cheltenham, Gloucester and Tewkesbury.
In July 2008, OWAT confirmed that it had fined Severn Trent Water £35.8 million for deliberately providing false information to Ofwat and for delivering poor service to its customers. In July 2008, the company was fined £2m for poor information reporting and covering up misleading leakage data.
Despite improvements, according to Ofwat, the percentage of leakages from 2010 to 2011 was the highest in England and Wales, at 27%, representing 0.5 billion litres per day. On 11 March 2016, Severn Trent customers in Derbyshire were issued a "do not use" notice due to high levels of chlorine detected in the water supply, leaving thousands of households without a clean, reliable water supply.

Reservoirs

The company operates a number of reservoirs, many of which are accessible for recreational use. These include: