End Sewage Pollution Coalition calls for a Public Inquiry to End Sewage Pollution

The End Sewage Pollution Coalition of 17 environmental NGOs, sports governing bodies and grass root community groups representing over 500,000 thousand members have joined together to call for the UK government to immediately launch a public inquiry to deliver transformational reform of the water system and end sewage pollution.

Across the UK, there were at least 604,833 discharges in 2023. In England alone, untreated sewage was discharged for 3.6 million hours. Hospital admissions due to waterborne diseases such as dysentery and Weil’s disease have increased 60% since 2010. The largest ever investigation into criminal wrongdoing by water companies is underway. Thames Water is on the brink of collapse. And the regulators are happy to allow untreated sewage discharges to continue to be discharged and water companies to extract million in dividends.

It’s clear from all of this, and so much more our system is broken.

The new DEFRA Secretary of State has made it clear his top priority is to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas. We welcome the steps that the government has already put forward in the King’s Speech. However, given the sheer scale of the sewage crisis, we do not believe that measures will create the transformational change we need to fix our broken water system.

An overwhelming majority (82%) of the British public support the setting up of an independent public inquiry into the discharge of raw sewage into rivers and seas. It is off the back of this clear public demand for change that the End Sewage Pollution Coalition of water lovers and water users have collectively said enough is enough. It’s time for a public inquiry and wholesale reform.

What are we calling for?

A Public Inquiry to Deliver Transformational Reform of the Water System

Read our full priorities for the new government here:

We are calling on the new Government to immediately launch a UK wide statutory public inquiry to deliver transformational reform of the water system and set the country on a trajectory to end sewage pollution. The inquiry should be launched, completed and recommendations actioned within the first year of the new government.

The inquiry and resulting recommendations must learn from the clear failures in the current regime and address how regulators and the water companies are set up, operated and financed. The reform of the regulatory landscape must ensure a fair, equitable and transparent system that prioritises public health, the environment, value for customer money and that delivers healthy rivers, lakes and seas.

The inquiry must have long-term transformational environmental improvement at its heart but also achieve short-term progress in dealing with immediate issues, including holding polluters to account.

The inquiry and resulting recommendations should deliver the following outcomes:

1) Enforcement of the Law:

2) Ends Pollution for Profit:

3) Prioritises Public and Environmental Health

4) Mainstreams use of Nature Based Solutions:

5) Reveals the Truth

As well as launching this Public Inquiry we believe that there are tangible actions that the government can take immediately to achieve results.

1) Increase funding regulators so that they can do their job right now

2) Make sure water company plans for the next 5 years end sewage pollution affecting popular recreational waters and high-priority nature sites by 2030,

3) Re-open bathing water applications for 2024 and reform the Bathing Water Regulations to extend the bathing season year-round.

Read our full priorities for the new government here: https://www.sas.org.uk/water-quality/our-water-quality-campaigns/end-sewage-pollution-coalition-call-for-a-public-inquiry/