A trade union has accused the new chief executive of Welsh Water of being responsible for a “toxic” workplace culture at his last position. Roch Cheroux was previously the head of Sydney Water, but the board fired him.

Welsh Water: beth yw’r uffern?

According to Nation Cymru, despite this, Welsh Water have insisted he is the right person for the job.

After his departure, the Australian Services Union (ASU) issued a statement, with the headline:

Sydney Water workers celebrate end of toxic leadership.

They called his exit a victory for workers, and:

 a long-overdue opportunity to reset the workplace, end wasteful spending, and restore fair treatment for workers.

They also claimed:

• The worst EA in the entire Australian water industry

• An EA that takes you backwards on pay and conditions

• Longer hours, fewer RDOs, roster chaos and use your annual leave to pay for their shutdowns

• Your pay and conditions go down – while rent, mortgages and groceries all go up

Cheroux took over the publicly-owned utility in 2019 with a clear agenda of privatising Sydney Water.

Swimming in shit

Welsh Water is a not-for-profit that has been prosecuted several times for discharging sewage into oceans and rivers. In October 2022, they were issued fines totalling £8m.

The same year, it discharged sewage 81,937 times, breaching permits 170 times.

According to the BBC, Surfers Against Sewage said pollution levels were “catastrophic” and accused Welsh Water of having “no shame”.

But Welsh Water are not the only water company swimming in shit.

The Canary previously reported that water companies have overseen huge increases in serious sewage pollution incidents. According to Surfers Against Sewage, they are at a ten-year high.

In 2024, there were 2,487 incidents. This is over twice the limit that the Environment Agency (EA) set. This is separate to the total number of sewage spills, which stood at 3.614 million hours of spillages into our lakes, rivers and seas in 2024.

The EA set a target for water companies to collectively deliver a 40% reduction in pollution incidents compared with 2016. But instead, there was a 31% increase.

Huge pay packages

On top of the new Welsh Water scandal, only this week Rachel Reeves gave a government job to a Thames Water crony. Jenny Scott is a part-time adviser to the Treasury board, whilst also working full-time for a firm that represents Thames Water. The company is currently on the edge of a taxpayer-funded intervention.

Previously, Reeves accepted £27,000 in donations from a lobbying firm with links to potential buyers of Thames Water.

The boss of Severn Trent, Liv Garfield, was paid over £3m in 2024. Her salary of £830,000, plus an additional £2.3m in bonuses and benefits, came from higher consumer bills.

Tim Mcmahon, Director of Southern Water, told consumers to ‘ration water’ whilst selling off reservoirs.

Water companies sold off 35 reservoirs in just five years, making £26 million from flogging what were public assets. That’s before Margaret Thatcher privatised them in 1989.

As the Canary previously reported:

A 2018 document shows Southern Water will decommission 43 of 93 reservoirs between 2023 and 2030. Yet it only plans to build one more in the coming years with Thames Water. This suggests that for-profit companies are incapable of maintaining vital infrastructure that the country needs.

And it’s not just the reservoirs losing water. In 2021, water firms lost more than 1 trillion litres through leaky pipes.

A University of Greenwich study for We Own It found a “privatisation tax” of 35% on our water bills. In other words, we spend over one-third more than we need every time we turn on the taps.

Research suggests that the UK public would save £5bn per year on water bills if the government brought water into public ownership. That number would be even higher, once it didn’t include paying off nationalisation costs.

Water bosses are getting richer and more toxic whilst haemorrhaging taxpayer money. Meanwhile, our bills keep increasing. But unless the government brings water into public ownership, the problem is only going to keep getting worse. Welsh Water’s new appointment sums this up.

Feature image via the Canary

By HG

This post was originally published on Canary.