Water boss makes £30m at Britain’s biggest polluter United Utilities

The recently retired boss of United Utilities made £30 million while at the helm of Britain’s biggest water polluter, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

The huge sum paid to Steve Mogford since he became chief executive in 2011 is thought to be a record for the water industry.

It would have been even higher had he not handed back a ‘material’ part of his bonus last year, documents show.

News of the bumper payout comes as United, the monopoly water supplier to 7 million people in north-west England, came under fire last week for a massive raw sewage dump that led to a 14-mile stretch of coastline around Blackpool being closed to bathers.

Environmental campaigner Feargal Sharkey slammed United as ‘by far and away the country’s largest dumper of sewage’ and urged the Government to consider imposing an enforcement order, which would give it the power to fine the firm up to 10 per cent of its turnover.

There were an average of 825 sewage dumps a day in English waterways in 2022, which lasted a total of 1.75 million hours, according to the Environment Agency.

United was last year named as the UK’s most polluting water firm, but it still has a top 4-star environmental rating from the regulator.

Mogford, who has been replaced as chief executive by Louise Beardmore, took home £2.3 million in his final year, including £1.3 million in bonuses. That was down from the £3.2 million he was paid in 2022 after he decided to waive part of his bonus linked to environmental performance – even though targets were largely met.

Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ environment spokesman whose Cumbria constituency is covered by United Utilities, said: ‘The system is clearly broken when water bosses are rewarded with millions of pounds for destroying the environment. This is a slap in the face for people who are seeing their water bills rise and our treasured rivers and lakes polluted with sewage by United Utilities. The Environment Secretary needs to wake up and stop the shameless profiteering of water companies.’

Campaigners have slammed the sector for handing executives massive pay packets and showering shareholders with huge dividends while investing far too little in Victorian-era infrastructure.

United said Mogford’s performance-related pay was ‘directly linked to achieving stretching targets aligned with the interests of customers and stakeholders’.