Anna Firth, Member of Parliament for Southend West, today in the House of Commons called for an end to sewage in our waterways.
Anna Firth raised this issue during Parliamentary Questions to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. She called for water companies to do more to ensure that untreated sewage is not pumped into the waters off Southend.
Anna, who has pledged to make Southend West healthier, called the dumping of sewage into the Thames Estuary completely unacceptable.
Sewage is pumped into Britain’s waters through the use of storm overflows, which are a hangover from the UK’s Victorian sewage system. These storm overflows are allowed to be used in exceptional circumstances, such as periods of very heavy rainfall, and stop sewers backing-up into homes. Last year, these overflows were used in Southend 48 times, dumping sewage into the Thames Estuary for 251 hours, which is over ten days. On average, a total of 39 million tonnes of sewage is dumped in the Thames each year.
The Conservative Government have called on water companies to do more to stop the use of storm overflows. The Environment Act, passed last year, places a direct legal duty on water companies to progressively reduce the impact of their use. A new ‘Storm Sewage Discharge Reduction Plan’ has also been published, and is currently open for consultation.
Answering Anna’s Parliamentary Question, Rebecca Pow, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, agreed that the dumping of sewage into the Thames was completely unacceptable.
Commenting, Anna Firth said:
“Ensuring the sea that laps the 7 miles of fabulous beaches in Chalkwell, Leigh and Westcliff-on-Sea is as clean as possible is absolutely vital for all of us. The sea is Southend’s best and most important asset attracting some 7 million tourists every single year that contribute £470 million to our local economy. Southend without clean water is like Jamie Oliver without a clean frying pans. We have the cleanest, greenest Government for years but, nonetheless, I intend to pressurising the Government to take more action on this.
"I was absolutely shocked at the amount of sewage that is being pumped into the Thames Estuary, and the water companies must take immediate action to stop this. I am working with various local groups, including Surfers Against Sewage, to put an end to this practice. I am also putting the pressure on Anglian Water to stop the dumping of raw sewage into our waters so that we can all enjoy clean, safe water off Southend 365 days a year.”
Anna's full contribution can be viewed at https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/b31a88c3-0dc5-4ef0-acb2-c133a3d57041?in=10:06:11
