Irate Warwickshire councillors claim they continue to be ignored by Severn Trent Water – despite the employee responsible being a Coventry councillor himself. 

One of Warwickshire's most senior councillors, the county's portfolio holder for economy Councillor Martin Watson, told Severn Trent representatives that he had received nothing back from two attempts to reach out to the firm during a recent meeting of Warwickshire's communities scrutiny committee.

Cllr Watson also serves on North Warwickshire Borough Council and utilised Severn Trent's councillor-only email address after a similar presentation to his other authority, delivering a withering assessment of progress to date.

"I can tell you, not only is it not answered, it isn't even acknowledged," he said. 

"I have written to it twice, I know other councillors who have written to it. 

"I have an issue in one of my villages where sewage is in the surface water. I think one of the frustrations is over ownership, I have spent three years ping-ponging between Severn Trent and the Environment Agency about whose problem this is. 

"Residents ring us and expect us to know the answer. We are not water experts but they want to see something done so it would be really helpful if there is that ownership when you get these escalations, so that someone grabs it, whether that is Severn Trent, Environment Agency or even (Warwickshire County Council) highways. 

"The frustration is we seem to get passed from pillar to post, that's certainly the experience I have had."

It formed part of a discussion dominated by a number of cases of road closures, repairs, flooding and sewage spills that residents reached out to individual councillors about across Warwickshire. 

Severn Trent's response came from stakeholder engagement manager Ed Ruane, who is also a Labour councillor on Coventry City Council. 

He acknowledged he is "responsible for responding to any of those" and committed to looking into specific issues. He also said a councillor newsletter was being published but none of the Warwickshire members in the room knew about it. 

Cllr Daren Pemberton continued the grilling. 

"Residents don't expect us to be engineers and understand the answers but one of the key roles we have is that if we don't know, we know someone who does," he said. 

"In other words, we can get to the adult in the room. I would suggest that when there is an issue, we can't get to that adult. 

"They may legitimately say they don't know the answer, that there is a delay or something else but my observation is that from a customer service perspective, frankly, you guys are more Ryanair than John Lewis. 

"You have to decide as an organisation where you want to be. We are not trying to make your lives difficult, we are trying to highlight things where something needs to be done, you can perform better and that helps your corporate reputation. 

"We are not asking for the moon on a stick, we are asking for sensible answers and to have a process that works and it doesn't at the minute.

"You're not always going to be able to sort everything but at least give us something to go back to our residents with."

He concluded with a point that should resonate with Mr Ruane. 

"You aren't the ones who lose your jobs," added Cllr Pemberton. 

"We are on a four-year fixed contract with the public, if we can't deliver answers then we are on the stick for it. 

"Help us and we can be part of the solution for your customers." 

Mr Ruane replied: "If you think there are areas we are not performing, there is this dedicated councillor email address. That is the purpose of why we're here today, to understand what the complaints and concerns are, then feeding back to you in a public forum and doing that formal process.

"We are more than happy to strengthen that, we accept there are areas of weakness but we need to drill down into specifics rather than talk about the general."