Thames Water Utilities Ltd, known as Thames Water, is a large private utility company responsible for the public water supply and waste water treatment in most of Greater London, Luton, the Thames Valley, Surrey, Gloucestershire, north Wiltshire, far west Kent, and some other parts of England; it has a considerable local monopoly. Thames Water is the UK's largest water and wastewater services company, and supplies of drinking water per day, and treats of wastewater per day. The area covered by Thames Water has a population of 15 million, that comprise 27% of the UK population. Thames Water is responsible for a range of water management infrastructure projects including the Thames Water Ring Main around London; the Lee Tunnel; Europe's largest wastewater treatment works and the UK's first large-scale desalination plant, both at Beckton. Thames Water awarded Bazalgette Tunnel Ltd the contract to build the £4.2 billion London Tideway Tunnel Infrastructure proposals by Thames Water include the proposed reservoir at Abingdon, Oxfordshire, which would be the largest enclosed or bunded reservoir in the UK. Thames Water is regulated under the Water Industry Act 1991 and is owned by Kemble Water Holdings Ltd, a consortium formed in late 2006 and formerly owned by Australian-based Macquarie Group's European Infrastructure Funds specifically for the purpose of purchasing Thames Water. Currently the largest shareholders are Canadian pensions group OMERS (23%), the Universities Superannuation Scheme, (19.7%) BT Pension Scheme (13%), the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (9.9%), the China Investment Corporation (8.7%) and the Kuwait Investment Authority (8.5%). The name of the company reflects its role providing water to the drainage basin of the River Thames and not the source of its water, which is taken from a range of rivers and boreholes. In March 2017 a judge imposed a record fine of £20.3m on Thames Water after large leaks of untreated sewage, totalling 1.4bn litres, occurred over a number of years. Sarah Bentley joined Thames Water in 2020 as its new CEO. History Origins Thames Water can trace its history back to the building of the New River, from 1609 to 1612, which channelled fresh water from Hertfordshire to the New River Head in Islington. The business of the New River was taken over by the New River Company, officially founded by royal charter in 1619, under the leadership of Edmund Colthurst and Hugh Myddelton. Although earlier water companies existed providing fresh water to London, the