Water boss who was denied £417,000 bonus over sewage spills gets £435,000 'allowance' instead

Published: 22:04, 28 June 2026 | Updated: 22:04, 28 June 2026 A water company boss stripped of her £417,000 bonus over deadly sewage levels is to receive an even greater 'allowance' – which the regulator can't touch. United Utilities chief executive Louise Beardmore is in line to pocket £435,000 in shares a year, which will be paid out regardless of the company's performance. Ms Beardmore expected a £417,000 bonus for 2024/25 but lost it after Ofwat ordered a safety check of a release valve at a reservoir resulting in the death of thousands of fish. The incident, graded as being in the most serious category of breaches, resulted in a fine of £60,000 for the company and the activation of sanctions by Ofwat. If the 'allowances' are approved, Ms Beardmore, 51, will receive nearly half a million pounds in shares a year until 2030 to offset any potential sanctions to her annual bonus. Finance director Phil Aspin is being offered a similar deal of £280,000 in shares a year. Shareholders are expected to vote on the changes on July 17. If there are no sanctions to their bonuses, the shares will still be given with the condition that they must be held for two years. In the latest financial year 2025/26, Ms Beardmore made £2.5million – including a bonus of £830,000. United Utilities chief executive Louise Beardmore is in line to pocket £435,000 in shares a year despite being tripped of her £417,000 bonus over deadly sewage levels Defending the manoeuvre, a spokesman argued the allowances are needed to maintain and attract the necessary talent on the executive board. He said: 'Shareholders had questioned the board over the ability of our current remuneration policy to retain the current executive team and attract the calibre of talent required.' According to the company's annual report: 'Our remuneration arrangements must recognise that we are competing to retain and attract talent in an extremely challenging and competitive marketplace, with other industries seeking the same key skills we need, but without the increasingly complex regulatory and political landscape we are operating within.' United Utilities supplies roughly seven million homes in northwestern England and is investing £13billion on updating its facilities until 2030. Ofwat gained the power to remove bonuses from water company bosses after public outrage at increasing water rates, outages, safety breaches and pollution fears forced the Government to act last year by introducing the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025. Ofwat said: 'We require full transparency on all remuneration, performance-related or otherwise, and companies must clearly explain their decisions. 'We are currently reviewing companies' remuneration decisions and will not hesitate to take action where we find breaches of our rules.' The comments below have not been moderated. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. Your details from Facebook will be used to provide you with tailored content, marketing and ads in line with our Privacy Policy.