The list of nominations for election was published last night see here.

It is heartening to see that there is no shortage of candidates with 129 nominees chasing 60 seats.

The big battles look like being fought in the following three-seat wards each with eight candidates:

Axminster

Budleigh & Raleigh (readers might be surprised at this but Budleigh has form for kicking the Tories out eg 2003)

Cranbrook

Exmouth Brixington

Ottery St Mary

In contrast, there are straight fights in these single seat wards:

Exe Valley  (between Lib Dem and Consevatives)

Feniton (between Conservatives and Greens)

Newton Poppleford (between Independent and Conservatives – don’t Tories ever learn?)

Sidmouth Rural  (between Independent and Conservative)

Tale Valley (between Lib Dem  and Conservative)

Trinity Ward (between Lib Dem and Conservative)

Whimple & Rockbeare  (between Lib Dem and Conservative)

In total, the data – which was analysed by the party – shows 141,777 sewage-dumping events occurred across 137 constituencies on the coasts of England and Wales in 2022.

This analysis found sewage was dumped once every three minutes and 45 seconds in 2022, adding up to a combined total of 980,999 hours of discharges last year.

Not a good start for the Tory local council election campaign – will they need to reprint their handouts? – Owl

Donna Ferguson www.theguardian.com 

Ministers have treated coastal communities as if they are “open sewers”, Labour has said, after a damaging analysis of Environment Agency (EA) data revealed sewage was dumped for almost a million hours last year.

In total, the data – which was analysed by the party – shows 141,777 sewage-dumping events occurred across 137 constituencies on the coasts of England and Wales in 2022.

This analysis found sewage was dumped once every three minutes and 45 seconds in 2022, adding up to a combined total of 980,999 hours of discharges last year.

The shadow environment secretary, Jim McMahon, said people who live by the coast “should be able to just enjoy the place where they live without having to worry about encountering filthy raw sewage”.

He added: “That the Tories have allowed villages, towns and cities across the country to be treated as open sewers shows that they have no respect for places where people live, work and holiday.”

The coastal constituency of Torridge and West Devon was found to have had the highest total hours of sewage discharge, at 57,494 hours.

The EA revealed at the end of last month that there were more than 300,000 raw discharges into rivers and coastal areas in 2022, lasting for more than 1.75m hours. Keir Starmer accused the government of “turning Britain’s waterways into an open sewer”.

On 21 April, MPs will debate a private member’s bill, put forward by McMahon, which Labour says would curb sewage discharges by 2030. It includes proposals to automatically fine companies for sewage dumping and implement legally binding reduction targets.

The party has previously said it would introduce a legally binding target to end 90% of sewage discharges by 2030 and stronger sanctions and fines for water bosses and companies who fail to do so.

“The next Labour government will build a better Britain, ending the Tory sewage scandal by delivering mandatory monitoring on all sewage outlets, introducing automatic fines for discharges, setting ambitious targets for stopping systematic sewage dumping and ensuring that water bosses are held to account for negligence,” said McMahon.

A senior Conservative party source said the Tories had brought in widespread monitoring of the issue, and said sewage was dumped more frequently under Labour in Wales.

EA figures released last month show that last year across England, sewage discharges fell by 19%, down to a total of 301,091 spills. However, the drop was largely due to dry weather and not action taken by water companies, the agency said.

A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesperson said: “We have introduced compulsory monitoring, set the strictest targets ever on water companies to reduce discharges and required them to deliver the largest infrastructure programme in their history.

“The environment secretary has demanded an action plan on every storm overflow from every company in England, prioritising those near bathing waters.

“We are also consulting to give regulators more powers to impose much larger penalties for polluters without needing to go to court.”

The Times Leading Article www.thetimes.co.uk

It is barely 18 months since 265 Conservative MPs provoked a national outcry when they voted down a Lords amendment to the Environment Bill that would have required water companies to demonstrate progressive reductions in discharges of untreated sewage into Britain’s waterways. Life comes at you fast. The government has since launched no less than three water sector action plans, of which the latest was announced yesterday by Thérèse Coffey, the environment secretary. This came in response to growing public anger at the dire state of the country’s rivers and coastal areas, as highlighted by The Times’s Clean it Up campaign, and ahead of local elections in which government inaction is an issue on doorsteps.

Yet there was little in yesterday’s [Monday’s] announcement to suggest that the government has a grip on the problem. The plan consisted merely of reheated existing policies, vague aspirations and promises of new consultations. The £1.6 billion Ms Coffey said would be spent on reducing discharges from storm overflows is money already earmarked for investment pending a rise in customer bills in 2025. Ms Coffey expects this investment to reduce spills by 10,000 by 2030. That compares to 300,000 spills in England and Wales last year, according to the Environment Agency.

It was a mark of the government’s shortage of ideas that it felt the need yesterday to reannounce a ban on wet wipes, as it has been doing with tedious regularity since 2018. Yet predictably, even this is subject to a consultation. Ironically, Ms Coffey chose to launch her new plan at the London Wetland Centre in Barnes, just metres from a notorious spot on the banks of the Thames where piles of wet wipes accumulate whenever Thames Water discharges raw sewage into the river, which is seemingly every time it rains.

What is missing from Ms Coffey’s plan is radical action to get a grip on the decades of underinvestment by an industry that for far too long has been able to siphon off customer money to fund vast dividends for its shareholders and lavish salaries and bonuses for its executives. Ms Coffey talked of giving the Environment Agency the power to impose unlimited fines on water companies. Of course, the current limit of £250,000 is inadequate, but it is only weeks since she insisted that raising the cap to £250 million was excessive. Similarly, a proposal to give Ofwat, the regulator, new powers to link dividend payouts to environmental performance sounds promising, but it is unclear how it would work in practice.

A radical plan would recognise that the current system for managing the country’s water resources is broken. As Sir Dieter Helm, professor of economic policy at Oxford University, wrote in The Times last week, responsibility is spread across dozens of regulators, agencies, government departments, water companies and farmers, all operating in their own silos. Ms Coffey’s plan rightly recognises that a new approach is needed based on catchment areas, which can take an integrated approach to water supply and tackling pollution. But these catchment plans need integrated budgets and someone in charge of delivery, along with much more demanding targets to stop the spills.

Instead, it is customers who are expected to continue to pay the price of industry failure in the form of bills that are no longer simply a charge for the provision and maintenance of infrastructure but a regressive means of rationing supply. Thanks to decades of underinvestment, including no new reservoir for 30 years and the loss of 20 per cent of annual supply due to leaks, a country famous for its rainfall is forecast to be four billion litres a day short of what will be needed for public water supply by 2050. The government’s response is to push for increased use of water meters, while Ms Coffey calls for new standards for dual flush toilets. That is no solution if it still ends up in the river.

Remember: Devon one of UK’s most at risk areas for flooding and John Hart’s famous quote, “self-help is going to be the order of the day”? Well nothing for us in this announcement. You’re on your own. – Owl

Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs www.gov.uk

Floods Minister Rebecca Pow has today (Wednesday 5 April) announced the first communities in England to receive better flood protection as part of the government’s £100 million Frequently Flooded Allowance to protect areas which have been affected by repeated flooding.

The first 53 projects announced today will be allocated more than £26 million in total, better protecting more than 2,300 households and businesses across the country.

Communities that will be better protected include those in Worcestershire, which faced severe flooding with Storm Christoph in 2021, and Cumbria, whose residents suffered major flooding from Storm Desmond in 2015 and Storm Ciara in 2020.

It will also better protect properties in the Calder Valley, which was devastated by flooding when it was hit by both Storm Ciara and Storm Eva in 2015.

The allowance targets communities where 10 or more properties have flooded twice or more in the last 10 years. These communities are often smaller and can face barriers to access funding due to the relative complexity and cost of building flood defences compared to the size of the community.

Environment Minister Rebecca Pow said:

We know only too well the devastating impact that flooding can have on communities and businesses, as we face more extreme weather brought about by climate change.

I am determined that we do whatever we can to prevent flooding that affects so many towns and villages across the country.

This much-needed funding will go a long way to support those whose homes and livelihoods are repeatedly threatened by flooding and forms a key part of our record £5.2 billion investment by 2027 to protect communities in England better.

Caroline Douglass, Executive Director for Flood and Coastal Risk Management at the Environment Agency, said:

Increased flooding is just one of the impacts of climate change we are seeing in the UK and around the world. Protecting people and communities is our top priority as we look to tackle this challenge.

The funding announced today will help better protect homes and businesses at risk from repeated flood incidents across the country.

The Environment Agency’s strong track record in delivering flood defence schemes means we have better protected 374,000 homes since 2015.

Projects will improve resilience through a mixture of hard engineering flood defences and natural flood management measures. The allowance also supports the installation of property flood resilience (PFR) measures such as flood doors and barriers, meaning more homes will be better protected in communities where traditional defence schemes are not always viable.

The ring-fenced funding is part of a record £5.2 billion investment in flood defences to protect communities across England better.

Since the start of the current £5.2 billion investment programme (2021-2027), we have already better protected more than 35,000 properties. This follows our successful delivery of the previous £2.6 billion investment programme between 2015 and 2021, which better protected more than 314,000 homes across England.

See below for a full list of projects to receive funding:

• Alconbury Flood Alleviation Scheme Stage 2
• Brighton & Hove City Council Surface Water Management Feasibility Study
• Bingley and Shipley Property Flood Resilience Study
• Bledington Flood Alleviation Scheme
• Brighouse Flood Alleviation Scheme
• Burrow Beck Conveyance Improvements
• Carlisle Appraisal Package Appleby Town Centre
• Chard Flood Alleviation Scheme
• Cocker Beck, Lowdham, Flood Alleviation Scheme
• Dufton Close Feasibility Study
• Earby Flood Alleviation Scheme Phase 3, Earby Beck
• Eardisland Flood Alleviation Scheme
• Erringden Hillside
• Falmouth Integrated Urban Drainage Management
• First Avenue Flood Alleviation Scheme
• Flood Risk Reduction Schemes 2 – Copley Village Flood Alleviation Scheme
• Flood Risk Reduction Schemes 2 – Cottonstones near Lumb, Calderdale
• Flood Risk Reduction Schemes 2 – Railes Close between Luddenden and Midgley
• Greyfriars Community Flood Risk Management Scheme
• Hebden Bridge Flood Alleviation Scheme
• Ilminster Flood Alleviation Study
• Intake, Flood Risk Management Scheme
• Irwell Vale to Chatterton
• Langstone (Havant) Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Scheme
• Larkspur Close Integrated Urban Drainage Scheme
• Lavendon Flood Alleviation Scheme
• Leintwardine and Walford Property Flood Resilience
• Lindale Road Grange over Sands
• Lipson Vale Phase 1, Trefusis Park (South West Water Integrated Urban Drainage Modelling)
• Little Bollington River Bollin Property Flood Resilience
• Market Weighton Flood Alleviation Scheme
• Natural Flood Management Upstream of Cirencester
• Northumbria Integrated Drainage Partnership – Redcar (Yearby, Kirkleatham & Low Farm Drive, and West Dyke Road) Flood Alleviation Scheme
• Northumbria Integrated Drainage Partnership – Saltburn (Princes Road & Marske Road) Flood Alleviation Scheme
• North Road, Holme Village Flood Alleviation
• Pallion Flood Alleviation Scheme
• River Teme, Tenbury Wells Community Flood Alleviation Scheme
• Rolleston Brook Flood Alleviation Scheme, Staffordshire
• Ruislip Park Wood and Pinn Meadows
• Severn Stoke Flood Alleviation Scheme, River Severn
• Skipton Road
• Small Communities Property Flood Resilience Scoping
• South Cave Flood Alleviation Scheme
• Stony Stratford Flood Alleviation Study
• Stubbing Holme Road
• Tenbury Wells Integrated Flood Solution
• Toronto Close Flood Alleviation Scheme
• Undefended Properties in the Ironbridge Gorge – Individual Property Protection
• Upper River Piddle Catchment Flood Risk Management Scheme
• Walsden Flood Alleviation Scheme
• West End Road, St Helens
• Whitley Brook Flood Reduction Scheme
• Williton Flood Alleviation Study

Feargal Sharkey on Thérèse Coffey’s water pollution plan

Desperate revival of failed policies doesn’t add up

Feargal Sharkey www.thetimes.co.uk 

What we need is a government with the vision and leadership to stand up to the water industry and hold them properly to account. What we have, as we have seen today, is a government trying to scrabble together something that looks like a policy, ahead of the local elections.

This plan consists of rehashing, republishing, repolishing and re-presenting years-old failed policies. It reeks of desperation.

Take, for instance, wet wipes. It would be great to ban plastic wet wipes.

Presumably that’s why this is the third time in the past five years that the government has said it will ban them. Will it happen? On past experience, no.

Then they say that they are bringing forward £1.6 billion in investment to stop 10,000 sewage dumps a year. It’s a big number, until you realise how many sewage dumps there are a year: 300,000. So this is 3 per cent. That’s not a plan. That’s desperation.

Or what about the unlimited fines for water companies? Before Christmas, they announced they would increase fines to £250 million. In January, the chairman of the Environment Agency said that was “crazy”. A month later Thérèse Coffey, the environment secretary, said it was disproportionate.

We are meant to believe that in a matter of weeks they have had this miraculous vision on the road to the sewage treatment works, and are converted to the idea that we should have not merely £250 million, but unlimited, fines. It doesn’t add up. Ofwat already has the power to impose a fine that is 10 per cent of a company’s annual turnover. How many times has it done so in the past 30 years? Once.

What in God’s name is the point of creating a power when there is clearly no will to use it?

The maddening thing is, if it had the will and the wherewithal, there is already nothing to prevent the government bringing these companies to heel.

Coffey could say, “Here’s what is going to happen for the next ten or 15 years until we fix this. This is what you’re going to pay your shareholders. This is what you’re going to pay your executives. This is what you’re going to invest in your network and this is what you’re going to use to pay down that debt you’re walking around with.”

We would all end up with a nice new shiny sewage system and secure water supply. They’d end up with a company that’s debt-free, profitable and looking forward to a prosperous future. She could start that process this afternoon. But she won’t.

What is required is a properly managed, costed and deliverable ten or 15-year plan — along with people who can be held accountable for delivering it.

None of that exists and, until it does, none of this is going to stop.

A correspondent writes an open letter to Simon Jupp

Dear Simon,

I am very pleased that sewage pollution is being tackled in the immediate future in Sidmouth and Tipton St. John, but Simon, what criteria were used to choose these two locations?

I would have thought that the hours of sewage outfall would be the criteria.

Exmouth has over 2,000 hours of outfall into Lyme Bay and the Exe. Sidmouth just over 1,000 hours. I, therefore, would have thought that Exmouth should be prioritised.

(The Lib. Dems list of the 5 worst beaches in the country which lists Sidmouth ahead of Exmouth Revealed: Worst beaches for dumped sewage – is your nearest beach on the list? YES two! | East Devon Watch did worry me. Exmouth beach having less pollution than Sidmouth beach didn’t seem right. However, if the surrounding outfalls from the town are included Exmouth has twice the sewage outfall than Sidmouth)

And why choose Tipton St. John with 22 spills lasting 48 hours of pollution in 2021 into the small River Otter when upstream Honiton’s 2 main sewer storm overflow sites spilled 222 times for a total of 4759 hours, discharging into the River Otter?

South West Water seem to have a curious set of priorities.