CITY VIEW

comes into our homes, and dirty water is responsibly disposed of.

Last year, Thames Water was hit with a £51m fine, the largest of the £150m slapped on 11 different water firms.

Therese Coffey, the environment secretary, is considering whether another tranche of fines, this time worth £250m, will do the job of forcing the water giants to pull their act together. The problem goes deeper than simply forcing the polluter to pay, it is decades worth of failure to invest in infrastructure which ensures only filtered, treated, processed and then recycled water goes back into the ecosystem. Back in the 1990s, when these rules –and much of the systems to obey them –were introduced, it made sense. But the prevalence of heavy rainfall, flooding and population increases in hotspots has put these systems under immense pressure. Overflows of raw sewage were envisaged to be rarities, not the almost-weekly occurrence we see now.

For years, it seems, water bosses have simply been holding their breath (and their noses) and hoping for the best. But after

RIGHT OFF THE CHARTS Rishi Sunak inspects the CDs on offer for patients having MRI scans during a visit to the Oldham Community Diagnostic Centre in Manchester failure upon failure, there are growing calls for public ownership of these stewards of our pipes.

Fines, clearly, have not served their purpose. In April, water bills will rise, adding insult to injury to consumers paying for a service unable to bear fruit.

This has to be the final straw for water companies to prove they can clean up their act –and our oceans –or face a much tougher hand from Westminster.

What The Other Papers Say This Morning

The Guardian

Cineworld Shares Jump On Reports Of Takeover Offer From Vue

Shares in the cinema chain Cineworld jumped following rumours of a takeover offer from rival company Vue International. The firm filed for bankruptcy protection in the US in 2022.

THE TIMES HEATHROW BACK TO ITS BEST AS PASSENGER NUMBERS TAKE OFF

More than 5.4m passengers travelled through Heathrow in January, the busiest start to the year since 2020. John Holland-Kaye, the airport’s outgoing chief exec, said it was back to its best.

THE FINANCIAL TIMES WIRECARD’S MARKUS BRAUN VOICES ‘DEEPEST REGRET’ BUT DENIES FRAUD

Wirecard’s former chief exec Markus Braun has denied any knowledge of fraud at the German payments company that collapsed in 2020 in one of Europe’s largest accounting scandals, telling judges he was rejecting all charges.