Sandwell Liberal Democrats are calling on the Government to ban bonuses for Severn Trent Water after revealing they paid their company executives eye-watering bonuses, despite failing to fix leaking pipes ahead of this summer’s drought.

Water company bosses from Severn Trent Water were awarded £5,566,500 in bonuses despite companies leaking billions of litres of water every day. Some water companies such as Thames Water lose up to a quarter of all their water from leaks alone.

Sadie Smith has said the money should be going into fixing their leaking pipes instead.

Water companies have only promised to halve leaks by 2050 despite predictions of a rise in summer droughts as record temperatures continue to be broken.

England’s water company bosses have awarded themselves almost £27 million in bonuses over the past two years, despite reports they allow a staggering 2.4 billion litres of water to be leaked every day.