After decades of pollution, chronic underinvestment and presiding over a fundamentally broken water system, water companies in England have finally apologised for the disgraceful state they have left our rivers and seas in and promised to change. But how on earth can we trust them?

Of course, we welcome the industry finally taking responsibility and any additional investment to fix our broken system, but the money may prove too little and the apology too late. These companies have had ample opportunity to put things right and invest in their infrastructure. Meanwhile, surfers, swimmers and paddleboarders, from St Agnes to St Andrews, have been paying the price, risking becoming sick by simply entering the water.

Looking at the detail of the announcement, it all becomes pretty farcical, pretty quickly. Their apology and subsequent plan is built upon the assumption that ultimately they can get customers to foot much of the cost of the planned £10bn investment through unspecified increases in their bills. This is unacceptable on so many levels. We, the customers, have already paid for the water companies to do their job and deal with our waste. We should not have to do so again, especially in the middle of a cost of living crisis.

And it’s clear that water companies have the funds to pay for this investment themselves if they weren’t so focused on lining shareholders’ and executives’ pockets. Last year alone, companies rewarded their chief executives with £16.5m and paid out £965m to shareholders in dividends. We understand that water companies need to attract investment and talent to these complex jobs, but if they are not complying with their basic legal requirements to treat sewage effectively then nobody deserves to be rewarded.

It’s not yet clear whether the £10bn being announced today is enough to restore all of our rivers and seas to good health and keep waters safe. But what we do know is that priority must be given immediately to tackling those overflows that cause the most harm to people and the environment, so that we can end sewage pollution into bathing waters and high-priority nature sites by 2030. Water UK says the plans by water companies in England will cut the number of overflow incidents by up to 140,000 each year by 2030, compared with 2020.

We recognise that water companies have committed to increase transparency and make sewage spill data more available to the public, but yet again this doesn’t appear to be a gesture made in good faith. It’s a legal obligation placed on them by a government that is starting to panic in the face of the sewage scandal.