Campaigners claim sewage-spill, bill boycott is spreading

A number of residents of Hastings have reportedly followed action pioneered in Whitstable to boycott the payment of their wastewater bills in protest against sewage discharges by Southern Water.

In a local publication, Whitstable resident and campaigner, Julie Wassmer, said the refusal-to-pay strategy had just been taken up by protestors in Hastings, and that customers across the country including in Devon and Lancashire had also been withholding payments.

The idea was also recently championed by an audience member on the BBC’s Question Time.

• On bank holiday Monday, comedians Steve Coogan, Lee Mack and Joe Lycett will join Paul Whitehouse who fronted the recent BBC Our Troubled Rivers programme, to perform at a protest against sewage discharges to Lake Windermere.