The urgent need for additional treatment works and stormwater cisterns has hardly emerged as an election issue.
“Nationalisation” has been offered as remedy, notably by the Greens. This does not address the question of where will the money come from. OFWAT’s habit of imposing fines returns money to consumers rather than investing it in new plant. Buying out shareholders by adding to the £2.7 trillion public debt is deeply unattractive. Nationalisation without compensation is banned by the U.N. An astute chancellor might contrive to designate a polluting water company a public nuisance rather than a commercial asset so that it could be acquired for near-zero cost.
The regulatory framework has not been updated. Property developers are entitled to continue to claim access to the sewage network as a “free good”. This could have been changed several years ago when the scale of discharges became apparent. They could be required to provide small treatment plants as part of planning approval. The link below is an 18-person Klargester, costing £9,200.
The business model would need to buy out Severn Trent or Southern Water, raise some billions and elicit a moderate return from the captive customers. Capital for big engineering projects is now very difficult for UK entrepreneurs. So what about a Chinese water company? Yellow River Corp could be invited to give a business appraisal. https://www.gwinnettcounty.com/web/gwinnett/departments/water/whatwedo/wastewater/yellowriverwaterreclamationfacility
China Three Gorges Corp is another possibility, though they have been misrepresenting their products in Africa. Shanghai Electric Water is a third, though their wastewater portfolio is harder to establish.
There are risks and benefits in this. The level of hostility to China is now quite high. Suspicions about “spying” on our toilet habits could be a source of humour rather than a reason for expanding the armed forces. If they were able to deliver clean rivers at reasonable cost, UK-PRC relations would improve considerably. If they continue to discharge sewage at present levels, they would be no worse than present set of scoundrels.