SOUTH WEST WATER came close to leaving some of its 3.5 million customers without supplies in Britain’s drought of 2022, according to documents obtained by environment campaign group Greenpeace.

The documents, from the government’s Environment Agency, stated that the firm was inadequately prepared for the heatwave, which left reservoirs dangerously low.

South West Water was “not honest” with regulators about the risk a drought posed to the company’s water supplies, according to an Environment Agency assessment obtained by Greenpeace’s investigative unit Unearthed.

In another passage, the agency also told industry watchdog Ofwat that before the drought, South West Water showed “a lack of understanding of their own supply system, considering themselves as a potential water donor [to other water companies] in the future, only to find the reverse is true.”

Greenpeace said that, by contrast, the firm’s latest plan states that it needs to close a gap of over 200 million litres of water per day by 2050 in order to meet demand.

The company has also been fined for sewage pollution incidents.

Megan Corton Scott, political campaigner for Greenpeace UK, said: “South West Water have failed in tackling the sewage crisis, failed to prepare for drought, failed to even understand their own supply system and failed to be honest with the regulator — but they did succeed in raising shareholder dividends at the end of last year.

“Given this platform of incompetence and blatant money-grabbing, how long can the government stand idly by and let this company continue to control such a critical part of the nation’s resources?”

South West Water said: “We strongly reject any suggestion that we did not operate in good faith with the regulators or that we were not adequately prepared for the risk of drought.”