CASE STUDY

Becca Horn is the founder and co-ordinator of the Hasting & St Leonards Clean Water Action Group, founded in July 2021, and with over 200 participants.

Her group’s story is not untypical of many around the coast of Britain. Their group monitors, as best it can given limited resources, the pollution emanating from the myriad outfall pipes along the six-mile stretch of coast from Bexhill, east to Hastings.

The outfall pipes are a range of on-beach pipes, all have been polluting and the biggest offender,

So what’s happening is nothing new. A leaked report from 2022 found that the Environment Agency knew at least as far back as 2012 that the water companies were illegally dumping raw sewage in to the waterways. Here we get to the nub of the matter.

There is a clear ‘light touch’ approach’ from the Government departments and official watchdog ‘Ofwat’ regarding compliance. The findings from the 2012 report shows that self-regulation was preferable, as the same time as thousands of jobs were cut from monitoring, staffing and regulation.

In short, the Environment Agency, a non-departmental government body within the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), knew of the illegal discharges, had several opportunities to do something about it, and chose not to.

When Defra finally prosecuted the water companies for consistent illegal discharges, the total fines since 2015 the appropriately-named Bexhill & Hastings No.2 – which discharges 5km offshore.

Alarmingly, not only did Southern Water not tell people they were discharging raw sewage, they do not know how bad the pollution is, given that they themselves undertake no monitoring.

Additionally, no monitoring is taken to ascertain the health implications for those who have unknowingly swum in infected seas. There are many reports, says Becca, of people suffering from ear infections, stomach bugs and other unpleasant have come to £141 million – and most of those were from one prosecution, landing Southern Water a £90 million fine. This means it’s actually cheaper for the water companies to pay the fines than to repair the sewage systems.

It is effectively, little more than a fee they are prepared to pay in comparison to any legal obligations they may face. In November 2022, the government announced its intention to ring-fence the proceeds of all fines back into paying towards environmental improvements.

However, the government is also ordering the companies to invest £56 billion to carry out the work they were supposed to do 30 years ago. Even at the fastest working rate, this project will take over 25 years – the year 2048 – to complete, and costs will almost certainly rise hugely in that time.

Campaigners are launching a judicial review against the government plans, claiming that the projects lack immediacy, and don’t cover the problematic outfall pipes currently discharging into the rivers and seas.

You can see why, to the water industry collectively, a £141 million fine looks so appetising in the face of a £56 billion compulsory repair bill. For their part, the water companies are warning that if they are obliged to carry out this work at their own expense, water bills will rise sharply. This will not sit well with anyone. side effects as a result of partaking in what is supposed to be a healthy leisure activity.

Meanwhile, there is a Victorian sewage pipe that has collapsed

Clean water campaigner, and former musician, Feargal Sharkey

Since privatisation in 1989, water companies have handed out an eye-watering £72 billion in bonuses and dividends, mostly at the expense of the repair work and investment. They were given government assistance, and they blew it. Collectively, the water companies in England made £2.8 billion profit in 2021, in the face of record water and sewage pipe leakages, yet are £56.2 billion in debt.

Farming

Meanwhile, the water companies are pointing the finger at the farming industry which does indeed have its part to play in keeping the water supply clean. New rules were brought in by the Government in 2018 regarding the treatment of waste water. However, these rules have remained completely unenforced.

for the third time in 30 years in St Leonard’s which this time allowed raw effluence directly into the streets and into people’s homes. Southern Water has finally agreed to repair the pipe, albeit with no agreed timescale.

Businesses in Hastings – and indeed, every business located in a seaside resort or coastal city – are concerned about the effect the systemic polluting will have on tourism, and therefore trade. The water companies are not obliged to offer compensation, and at present, they have little incentive to stop.

A total of 391 breaches were identified during the financial year ending March 31st 2022, up from 106 breaches officially recorded in the previous year, according to data obtained by the investigative journalism organisation Point Source.

Since the rules were introduced, the Environment Agency has not issued any fines nor prosecuted anyone under the legislation. The increasing number of documented offences and the absence of a credible threat of enforcement of the law demonstrates a clear failure by the government to protect the country’s most fragile ecosystems, according to conservation organisations.