Severn Trent’s profits and revenues surged last year before the water giant hit consumers with a more than one-fifth annual increase in bills in April.
The company, which supplies water and sewage services to more than 4.7 million households and businesses across the Midlands and Wales, hiked bills by an average of 21 per cent this year.
That equates to a roughly £99 annual increase, with the average household now set to pay £556 over the year.
Severn Trent said the sharp increase in bills will help fund about £15bn in investment to upgrade its network of pipes, sewers and reservoirs over the next five years.
Meanwhile, the company enjoyed a bumper year financially, it revealed on Wednesday, with profits surging 59 per cent to £320m for the year ending March 31.
Water firms have been the subject of growing public outrage over rising bills at the same time as high levels of sewage pollution and executive bonuses in recent years.
Severn is among the better performing of the privatised water companies on environmental metrics in recent years, and beat recent targets set by Ofwat, the watchdog said in October.
The company said on Wednesday that its annual performance on “serious pollutions” also met the top industry standard set by the Environment Agency.
“That said, we have missed our overall regulatory pollutions target, and we understand that our assets need to be future-proofed to deal with more frequent extreme weather events,” it added.
On sewage spills, it said that in the first four months of 2025 it had seen year-on-year spill reductions of 66 per cent.
Chief executive Liv Garfield said the company’s environmental performance “has been made possible by our financial strength”.
“The £1 billion equity raise we secured ahead of this five-year business cycle, combined with strong financing and cost control, has given us the firepower to invest in our growth plan and will see us create 7,000 new jobs in our communities and through our supply chain.”
Annual revenue rose 3.8 per cent to £2.4 bn, the company said.
