In October 2021, Suella Braverman and a majority of Conservative MPs voted against an amendment that would have made water companies legally responsible for reducing the amount of sewage released.
Clause 141A of Lords Amendment 45 would have placed a legal duty on water companies in England and Wales to “make improvements to their sewerage systems and demonstrate progressive reductions in the harm caused by discharges of untreated sewage.”
Instead, in the 2 years since that vote, water companies in England have dumped raw sewage 775,568 times over 5,768,679 hours, according to Environment Agency data.
At the same time, water companies have paid out almost £966 million in dividends to their share-holders since 2021.
Our 2 main local rivers have fared no better, the picture is pretty dark (brown!):
- The River Wallington in Fareham suffered from around 350 hours of raw sewage dumping in 2022, in addition to the 43 hours that raw sewage was dumped directly into Fareham Creek. The Black Brook/ Blackbrook Stream to the south of Fareham town centre (also known as Gully or Gilly Stream) suffered from around another 100 hours of sewage dumping which obviously ended up in the Creek as well.
- The River Meon, flowing through Wickham and Titchfield, amongst other places, saw combined untreated sewage discharge of over 1200 hours in 2022.
If you would like to find out more about this data or where it came from, there is a very useful and detailed map here: https://theriverstrust.org/sewage-map which shows all of the UK and data on sewage release last year.
Fancy a dip??!
In addition to the obvious damage this is doing to our local rivers and streams, it is no better for our local beaches, as you can see below.
Image above is a screenshot taken from Surfer’s Against Sewage’s interactive map on the evening of Sunday 12th November 2023 – this map is the online version of the Safer Seas and Rivers Service (SSRS) and tracks real-time sewage discharge and pollution risks around the UK.
It demonstrates the pollution risk all along our local coastline. If you like to visit our coastline and particularly if you or your dog goes in the water, you should keep an eye on the live version here: https://www.sas.org.uk/water-quality/sewage-pollution-alerts/
It does not make for pretty viewing!!
If you would like to know more about this situation, and the damage it is doing to our waterways, there is an excellent explainer page from the Natural History Museum here:
Fareham MP Watch 