Anti pollution campaigner slams water industry summer sewage spills into bathing waters

Anti pollution campaigner Surfers Against Sewage has claimed that UK water companies dumped raw sewage into bathing waters on more than 5,500 occasions with 146 instances during periods when there had been no rain.

In its 2022 Water Quality Report the campaigner reported that during the year’s bathing season. “water companies discharged sewage into bathing waters around the country for 15,012 hours”. Some of the spills made during periods of little or no rain were “potentially illegal,” it said.

Responding Water UK claimed the industry had, during the past "couple of years" spent £3bn on its infrastructure that has brought “improvements for our rivers and seas.” It called on the government to:

• end housing developers’ uncontrolled connections to sewers without first knowing their capacity;

• end the flushing of wet wipes made from materials that cause blockages and fatbergs; and

• implement existing legislation in order to increase the use of sustainable drainage systems on new developments as a means of reducing the volume of rainwater entering the sewer system.”