Southern Water must pay for its pollution spills, watchdog told

Environmental groups condemn cutting of company's fine from 37.7m to 3m

Environmental groups are demanding one of Britain's biggest water companies be made to pay tens of millions of pounds to restore the damage to habitats and wildlife caused by thousands of pollution spills into the rivers and beaches across the south-east of England.

As details of the scale of the criminal inquiry into the allegedly deliberate misreporting of data and cover-up of thousands of pollution spills by Southern Water emerge, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are calling on the regulator, Ofwat, to review a penalty of 126m imposed on the company last month.