According to a recent study conducted by the Environment Agency (EA), the number of pollution incidents such as sewage spills reported by water companies in the UK have increased by an additional 160 incidents to 1, 902 incidents.

While the majority of UK water companies either came close to or exceeded their targets to improve water quality, there was an increase in pollution, as well as a small increase in the most serious sewage spills.

According to the EA, South West Water has had the highest number of spills and needs to make “significant improvements to their environmental performance.”

“They have not done enough to reduce pollution incidents and have repeatedly scored badly on this metric compared with other companies,” said a spokesman. “The Environment Agency has introduced special measures to monitor and challenge the company’s performance. These measures will remain in place until South West Water better protects the environment.”

South West Water has recently been given two considerable fines, and agrees that while the company has achieved its best performance ever in various areas, it still had far more to do.

“We continue to invest and innovate – for example, through using cutting-edge technology to monitor our sewerage network and purchasing a fleet of fully-equipped rapid response vehicles to enable staff to undertake sewer cleansing, surveying and reporting in one visit. This will help our response times and management of pollution incidents as we seek to drive numbers down,” id a company spokesperson.

The ability of water companies to reduce pollution will have a major impact on the health of beaches and rivers because, according to experts, good environmental performance ensures people can enjoy their surroundings, supports wildlife, and also has massive economic benefits.

Five of the nine companies had an increase in pollution incidents between 2015 and 2016, and three water companies were given a two-star rating meaning “company requires improvement.” Wessex Water and United Utilities were the top performing water companies.