Anglian Water faced tough questioning from Norfolk County Council's Infrastructure and Development Select Committee on 10 September 2026 over sewage discharges, water leaks and supply outages affecting residents across the county.

Committee members highlighted two sewage incidents on the Rivers Wensum and Yare that resulted in the deaths of approximately 3,000 fish. Anglian Water said it had worked with the Environment Agency on both cases — the Wensum incident was linked to weather-related run-off carrying road contaminants, while the Yare discharge followed a brief storm overflow triggered by heavy rainfall. The company said it had aerated the river to support recovery.

Councillors expressed frustration that 194.8 million litres of treated water had been lost through leakage at the same time residents were subject to a hosepipe ban. Anglian Water acknowledged that investment across the water industry had historically been kept low to hold down customer bills, but said climate change had now made greater spending unavoidable.

The hosepipe ban will remain in place well into autumn, Anglian Water told the committee, because water levels remain significantly below the required level. The company noted that demand had fallen sharply when the ban was introduced, which it said showed strong public support.

Residents in Sedgeford and nearby villages were singled out for concern after experiencing four days of outages and low water pressure over the May bank holiday weekend, when demand ran 30–40% above normal. Anglian Water apologised and said a leak on a communication pipe in Church Road had compounded the pressure spike. The company said it would work with the Norfolk Resilience Forum and continue monitoring supplies.

On future investment, Anglian Water said it planned to renew 1,000 kilometres of water mains to cut leakage and had allocated £158 million to reduce phosphorus levels at water recycling centres. However, it warned that its business plan was drawn up before recent increases in housing targets and does not include funding to support the additional growth.

Improvement works are planned at 34 storm overflow sites across Norfolk, including locations in Great Yarmouth and Norwich, with water quality schemes also progressing in King's Lynn and Mundesley. Anglian Water agreed to return to the committee in early 2027 to discuss flooding and longer-term drought planning.