Stephen Morgan MP has condemned ‘shocking’ figures showing that leisure and tourism spots across the South East are being devastated by 69 years-worth of raw sewage discharge.
Analysis of Environment Agency (EA) figures obtained under Freedom of Information requests by the Labour Party, has shown that since 2016, raw sewage has been pumped into the South East’s natural environment for a total of 612,917 hours.
Areas impacted include popular tourist and bathing spots such as rivers, lakes, and beaches – spoiling areas of natural beauty and risking public health.
Cumulatively, this equates to a duration of 25,538 days or 69 years of sewage discharge taking place across the South East and polluting its environment.
The data also points to a 27,052% increase in the number of monitored discharge hours, between 2016 and 2021. This highlights that the situation is only drastically worsening under the Tories, and a consequence of their two-thirds budgetary cut to the EA grant, which covers environmental surveillance and enforcement.
The full scale of the pollution is likely to be even greater, given that Event Duration Monitoring does not cover every permitted storm overflow.
Labour Party analysis also shows that between 2016 and 2021, there were 74,450 spill events onto the South East’s waters. This equates to a shocking average of a sewage spill taking place every 42.8 minutes over a 5-year period.
This comes amid revelations that the ‘zombie’ Tory government shelved sewage discharge reduction plans at the beginning of August – but has since u-turned due to mounting public pressure.
The Member of Parliament for Portsmouth South, Stephen Morgan, said:
“The Tories continuing to allow sewage dumping onto our beaches and into our waters is not just a destruction of Portsmouth’s natural environment, it’s also a significant public health hazard.
“Families flock to Portsmouth and the south coast to enjoy the British summer. They should not have to worry about being able to enjoy its coastal hotspots or whether they are swimming in sewage infested waters.
“The South East’s Tory MPs that voted against putting a stop to raw sewage discharge must explain to their constituents why they failed to protect their local beauty spots. Labour will clean up the Tories’ mess by ensuring water bosses are held accountable both legally and financially for their recklessness, through enforcement of unlimited fines, and tougher regulations that prevent them from gaming the system.”
In addition to writing to the EA earlier this week to raise concerns about recent sewage discharges onto south coast beaches, the Portsmouth MP has taken a range of actions to tackle the impacts of the dirty water crisis locally, including questioning Ministers, convening a public meeting on the issue and working alongside local organisations and charities to hold government and industry to account.
