Water firms illegally spilled sewage on dry days - data suggests
Three major companies released sewage on dry days in breach of their permits - BBC investigation.
www.bbc.co.uk
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Bang it with him thenThere was a half hour slot this morning between 8.00 and 8.30 on BBC news about pollution and the pisspoor performance of the Water Companies in general, our mate Feargal was on banging the drum, very eloquently!
Sadly Neil the majority of anglers just aren't bothered.I’m personally a little disappointed that the news article impacts, talk about human health e.g swimming. No mention of wildlife including fish
I keep saying that as anglers, we are not making enough noise about this. Whenever it’s on BBC or Sky News it generally some posh women’s local swimming group in a rich Tory suburb, who is being interviewed!
As individuals we should all be emailing our MP’s, reminding them that there’s a general election coming soon and that the one million+ anglers in this country are all fed up with the current state of our rivers! Leaving it to Fergal Sharkey and a few others, is a lazy approach.
She is utterly incompetent and appears to have an utter disregard for environmental protection, but the sad thing is that she probably isn't the worst person to hold that position under this Govt (Truss?Patterson?).And as long as we have Terese Coffey as Secretary of State for the Environment nothing is going to change.
Long term planning and agreement between parties on the best way forward to tackle these big issues is the only way they can be fixed.
‘Inter party planning’. I had to smile mate, most parties can’t agree with their own ministers let alone other parties…..Due to the basis of our Democracy there will never be any long term planning, which is what this country needs/deserves for the environment.
Each Political Party tries to implement a series of "quick fixes" to impress voters. However, unplanned events overwhelm them ie Covid, war in Ukraine etc etc.
So those issues needing inter-party long term planning such as pollution, energy security, immigration etc are pretty much left alone as they can't be fixed between
elections.
That, and the fact that most (not all) Ministers/MP's are incompetent and just covering their behinds.
Long term planning and agreement between parties on the best way forward to tackle these big issues is the only way they can be fixed.
Meanwhile the CEO's and shareholders of the Water Co's inc Pension Funds are hoping the "status quo" remains.
‘Inter party planning’. I had to smile mate...
I didn't post the article to highlight the policies of any political party, simply just to highlight the view being put forward that the sewage crisis is an electoral issue. This comes a welcome surprise to me.
Agreed.Me too, but if we had coalition governments it would no longer be in the interest of individual MPs to stick rigidly to party lines in order to get their party elected. It's a more grown-up way to govern and would force MPs to govern for the long term, not just five-year cycles.
Labour would have more credibility if the Welsh ( Labour controlled ) waters were any better….they aren’t.What changes are Labour going to make. Bearing in mind they have promised to change EVERYTHING for free if they are elected…..
I didn't post the article to highlight the policies of any political party, simply just to highlight the view being put forward that the sewage crisis is an electoral issue. This comes a welcome surprise to me.
And as for labour - best thing for you to do would be to read their draft policy platforms which will form the basis of their election manifesto (next year??)
But in summary, related to the issue of sewage they have pledged to:
I don't see any spending pledges as such. But actually enforcing existing laws and legislation would be a good start. Although as ever the devil in in the detail.
- Use regulatory powers to keep consumer bills down and ensure that water companies – rather than the public – pay for their failures
- Set mandatory targets to halve water leaks…Strike off company directors who continually breach and ignore their responsibilities
- Ensure illegal activity is punished and ensure payments of dividends are linked to key performance metrics
- Introduce mandatory monitoring of sewage outlets and automatic fines for sewage discharges, with a penalty for outlets that do not have monitoring in place.
- Set ambitious targets to cut sewage outflows
And no I'm not a labour voter, nor have I ever have been.