2025: A Year of Significant Impact for Save Windermere
2025 has been Save Windermere’s most impactful year to date.
Here are just some of the highlights.
2025 at a glance
Regulators forced to act: After decades of inaction, the Environment Agency is now reviewing all United Utilities sewage permits in the Windermere catchment. EA compliance inspections of United Utilities assets rose from zero in 2020 to 35 in 2025, with up to four potential prosecutions now underway.
Transparency won: United Utilities withdrew legal appeals and released environmental data they had fought to withhold, following sustained pressure from Save Windermere.
Illegal spills exposed: Working with WASP, we showed 2024 was the worst year on record, with 140 days of illegal sewage spills in and around Windermere.
Communities empowered: We have now directly or indirectly helped 200 properties begin exploring how to transfer non-mains sewage to United Utilities, as a result of our practical guidance, advice and research.
Investment unlocked: After investing just £75m over 35 years, United Utilities has now committed £200m over the next five years — a direct result of pressure from our campaigning.
A turning point reached: For the first time, government, regulator and water company are aligned behind the single goal we set out four years ago: ending sewage pollution in Windermere entirely, with a full engineering solution due in July 2026.
If 2025 was the breakthrough, 2026 is when delivery begins.
Forcing Action on Long-Ignored Sewage Works
At the start of the year, we continued our deep-dive investigations into sewage works around Windermere. One early focus was Far Sawrey sewage works, where the discharge permit had remained unchanged since 1989. Our objective was clear: to push the Environment Agency (EA) to review the permit and to secure better maintenance at the site.
Was it successful? Yes.
The EA is now reviewing the permit for Far Sawrey — alongside all other United Utilities (UU) permits in the Windermere catchment. UU has also increased tankering at the site by 171%, with a 33% increase across the wider catchment.
Our investigations continued throughout the year, focusing next on Esthwaite Lodge Pumping Station and potential cover-ups at Hawkshead Pumping Station — including exposing the true volume of treated sewage entering Windermere. These findings featured in our latest film, Origin.
As a direct result of sustained pressure, the number of EA compliance assessment inspections of United Utilities assets rose from zero in 2020 to 35 between January and October 2025. Environmental Information Regulations disclosures also suggest that four prosecutions may already be underway following recent inspections.
We Fought for Transparency, and We Won
After what felt like endless requests, rejections and appeals for environmental information from United Utilities, Save Windermere came close to ending up in front of a judge as UU called the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in front of a First-tier Tribunal, arguing that the information regulator was wrong to order the release of environmental information to our campaign.
Following continued pressure and action from Save Windermere, the Information Commissioner issued UU with a special enforcement measure, making it the first water company to ever receive one.
UU ultimately withdrew their appeals to the Tribunal. The data they had been fighting to withhold was finally released and, since then, UU has continued to provide further information in response to our ongoing requests.
Challenging Inadequate Regulation
We also exposed the inappropriate monitoring location chosen by the EA to assess the environmental impact of Near Sawrey Wastewater Treatment Works on Cunsey Beck. Despite initially insisting the original site was acceptable, the EA was ultimately forced to move the SONDES monitor to the correct side of the river.
This may sound technical, but where monitoring takes place determines what regulators see, and what they miss.
Empowering Communities to Take Action
This year, we launched an initiative to empower local residents and businesses with a clear, step-by-step guide explaining how they can request United Utilities to take ownership of non-mains sewage discharges in the catchment.
We have now directly or indirectly helped more than 200 properties begin exploring this process.
We went further still by publishing a detailed report explaining why septic tanks should have been a United Utilities responsibility for the past 30 years.
Exposing the True Scale of Illegal Sewage Spills
We also analysed the total hours of untreated sewage spills in 2024, and went further, revealing that 2024 was the worst year on record for illegal sewage spilling into Windermere.
Working with our partners at Windrush Against Sewage Pollution (WASP) to analyse detailed data requested from UU, we showed 140 days with illegal spills in and around the lake.
From Scrutiny to Systemic Change
These examples show the work we have done and the impact of sustained scrutiny, but they still don’t fully capture the scale of change.
Take investment as an example. Between 1990 and 2025, United Utilities invested £75 million in Windermere’s wastewater infrastructure. Now the picture looks very different. Over the next five years, United Utilities has committed £200 million, almost three times what it invested over the previous 35 years.
This is not a coincidence. It is the direct result of public pressure, media attention, scrutiny of assets through our investigations, and the momentum of this campaign.
At the outset, we were told by United Utilities:
“We’ve done our fair share to reach an ecologically good status for Windermere, and as a result we have no further investment planned.”
Four years on, the script has been flipped. The scale of investment alone shows just how far the dial has moved.
Even smaller changes are now visible. For example, between Glebe Road Pumping Station and Windermere Wastewater Treatment Works, United Utilities has hired ten new staff members.
Ending Sewage Pollution — Once and for All
Most importantly, in 2025 we finally succeeded in bringing the government, the water company and the regulator together around a single, shared ambition: to end sewage pollution in Windermere once and for all.
An engineering study is now underway to determine how all sewage discharges into Windermere, both treated and untreated, can be eliminated entirely. Due for completion in July 2026 and overseen by a steering committee on which Save Windermere sits, it will set out a fully engineered solution, a comprehensive economic appraisal, and an assessment of environmental benefits.
You can read the DEFRA press release from March here.
If 2025 was our biggest year yet, wait until 2026.
Happy New Year — and thank you for your continued support.
As we hope you can see, together we are Saving Windermere.
