…when they announced “multi-million pounds” to sewage upgrades in Sidmouth and Axminster and Phil added: “So, to hear this news – the funding coming for South West Water to tidy up their act really to be fair as pollutants – is really good news for us.”?
The truth is that the accelerated investment proposals they refer to are only DRAFT decisions.
Consultation finishes on 24 April.
Inconveniently, the final decision will post date the local elections.
Anyone, apart from Phil, believe the evidence points to funding coming from SWW and their shareholders rather than the taxpayer or the consumer?
Disgust over litter, outrage at potholes and pledges to support jobs are all hallmarks of local council election literature. But on yellow leaflets up and down the country, the focus is likely to centre more on the state of local rivers.
Tory voters are so angry about the state of polluted rivers that the issue could even cost the Conservatives the next general election, according to Sir Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader.
Davey, who was energy and climate secretary during the coalition years, headed to swing seats in Lewes and Eastbourne in Sussex last week to promise tougher action on sewage.
“We think that a lot of Tory voters are very, very angry. We think this could lose huge numbers of Tory seats to us at the council elections, and be a big issue in our fight for the general election,” Davey said on the day the government announced its “plan for water”.
A Lib Dem election leaflet doing the rounds in Lewes homes in on local environmental concerns
As well as visiting Eastbourne to see the beach’s storm overflows — the relief valves that nationally released raw sewage for 1.7 million hours last year — Davey also went to the River Ouse in Lewes. The district council recently passed a motion to give the Ouse legal rights, as concern grows about pollution of waterways.
While refusing to put a number on how many seats water pollution could swing, Davey said the Lib Dems were campaigning on the issue in Sussex, Winchester, Cheltenham, and Chesham & Amersham. “It’s not impossible to think that whether we get rid of the Conservative government or not may depend on people’s response on these environmental issues,” he said.
Davey said river health had resonated with voters in ways that some environmental issues had not. “They know their local river or their local beach. They swim in there or their kids swim in there, or they fish in there, their dogs go in there. It’s part of their life,” he said. In some constituencies, including Lewes, candidates have made water pollution the focus of their leaflets.
The Lib Dems have made sewage pollution one of their big issues since gaining traction on the problem at the 2021 by-election in Chesham & Amersham, Buckinghamshire, won by its candidate Sarah Green. “We suddenly realised that what we thought was a local issue was actually a national issue,” Davey said. Everyone asked what he was doing when he posed in the River Chess with wellington boots, Davey said, but the issue proved to be salient.
Davey was critical of the environment secretary Thérèse Coffey’s plan for waterways. He noted that her pledge to ban plastic wet wipes had been made several times before, including five years ago by Michael Gove. The Lib Dem leader blamed “a big political failure to direct regulators including Ofwat and the Environment Agency to get tough on water companies”. Although the Environment Agency budget rose last year, it had fallen for years and staff morale there has plummeted because of low pay.
Water companies are not off the hook, however. “It appears to me from some of the things I’ve seen that many of them are breaking the law and knowingly breaking the law,” Davey said. “They are discharging sewage at times when they shouldn’t and they have not been permitted to do so.”
It should not take decades to clean up our rivers, he said, citing Lib Dem policies including a tougher water regulator and environmental experts on the boards of water companies. Davey said water pollution was a “very personal” issue for him because he read books by the environmentalist Jonathon Poritt in the 1980s and joined the Lib Dems in 1989 because Paddy Ashdown and Simon Hughes were talking about the environment.
The government confirmed on Monday that four new bathing sites would be designated at wild swimming spots: two at Rutland Water, one on the river Deben in Suffolk and one at Firestone Bay in Plymouth. This should ensure that regular monitoring and health checks are carried out on the water. However, applications for bathing water status on at least seven rivers, including another stretch of the Deben, were rejected.
South West Water told officials that the target was “demanding” and would cause “disproportionate costs”….[looks like to the consumer – Owl]
…..South West Water called for a phosphorus equivalent of the EU’s carbon trading scheme, which could in theory allow water companies to “buy” reductions in phosphorus releases by farmers and other sectors instead of upgrading sewage works.
[Owl emphasis on this fudge and adds this quote from SWW: “We are passionate about our water and provide reliable, efficient and high quality drinking water and waste water services throughout Cornwall and Devon.“]
Water companies argued that a government target to clean up a key source of river pollution would drive up water bills and push many households into “water poverty”.
Effluent released from sewage treatment works is the biggest source of phosphorus in England’s rivers. Excessive levels of the nutrient can lead to algal blooms that reduce oxygen levels and choke fish and plants.
However, when the government recently consulted on its new Environment Act target of cutting phosphorus releases from sewage plants by 80 per cent by 2037, compared with 2020, it received a strong resistance.
South West Water told officials that the target was “demanding” and would cause “disproportionate costs”.
The company, whose number of sewage spills has drawn fire from Thérèse Coffey, the environment secretary, warned of “a significant increase in the number of households in water poverty and struggling to pay their bills”.
Thames Water said the drive to reduce phosphorus was “likely to materially increase customer bills”.
The government’s Plan for Water last week said there was four fifths less phosphorus in rivers than in 1990, but it wanted to go further. Coffey’s department said it had already required companies to invest £2.5 billion for further reductions by 2025.
While large sewage works have been upgraded to strip out a certain amount of phosphorus, many smaller facilities do not remove any of the pollutant.
The Times Clean it Up campaign has been calling for greater and faster investment by water companies to tackle phosphorus pollution, as well as greater incentives for farmers to curb their releases of the pollutant.
United Utilities, recently revealed as the worst sewage spiller in England, raised concerns that the phosphorus target would have a “sizable impact of the proposed targets on the affordability of water bills”.
Saving Windermere: Campaigner’s bid to end sewage pollution in England’s largest lake
Despite a water industry chief telling companies not to blame other sectors for river pollution, United Utilities complained that it was unfair agriculture had to cut phosphorus pollution by only 40 per cent. It said a “greater emphasis is needed on agricultural pollution” to get cleaner rivers.
South West Water called for a phosphorus equivalent of the EU’s carbon trading scheme, which could in theory allow water companies to “buy” reductions in phosphorus releases by farmers and other sectors instead of upgrading sewage works.
Anglian Water also bemoaned the focus on upgrading sewage works, which it warned could “incentivise significant investment” into “environmentally irrelevant point sources [places where pollution is released]”.
The lobbying drive was uncovered by the website OpenDemocracy, which obtained the company responses to a government consultation using freedom of information rules. The push has echoes of a similar sally by water firms last year, when they raised the spectre of steep water bill increases in response to new rules on reducing sewage spills from storm overflows. Figures released this month show there were more than 300,000 such spills last year.
The average annual household water bill in England and Wales is rising 7.5 per cent to £448 from this financial year. Analysts at Barclays expect that to increase to £700 in today’s money by 2050 to pay for investments in cleaning up sewage pollution and building infrastructure.
Despite the cost warnings from firms, the government stuck to its phosphorus target. Companies are expected to be forced by regulators to make improvements to their sewage works, such as using iron salts or reed banks to strip out more phosphorus.
More than 500 works are expected to be upgraded. “We have full confidence in our ambitious Environment Act targets,” a spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said.
Anglian Water said: “Every catchment and river will have different amounts of phosphorus and it might not be necessary to reduce this by 80 per cent to achieve the outcome for the environment.”
Thames Water said: “Taking action to improve the health of rivers is a key focus for us and we made clear in our response to the government’s consultation that we support the reduction of phosphorus in waterways.”
United Utilities and South West Water were contacted for comment.
Authority chiefs say the units can ‘deliver an innovative, carbon-neutral social housing solution’ on land that would otherwise prove difficult to build on.
They have added that the homes are ‘coming to a community near you soon’.
A demonstration house has been lowered into place at East Devon District Council’s (EDDC) HQ at Blackdown House in Honiton.
It will remain in place for six months and will be used as ‘a pivotal part’ of future community consultation and engagement events.
The modular homes feature solar panels, heat pumps and triple glazing to reduce running costs for occupants.
EDDC says it will reveal more about the project later this spring.
“The builder of these modular homes has a track record of consulting communities and adapting developments to reflect their wishes,” said a council spokesperson.
“The house on display has one bedroom, but plans are also in place for two- and three-bedroom homes.”
Councillor Dan Ledger, portfolio holder for sustainable homes and communities, added: “One of the key aspirations of the current administration at EDDC was to ensure the council starts to develop its own housing stock again.
“The aim is really simple, to deliver high-quality, low-carbon homes that are truly affordable for all.
“The new Housing Task Force team have been fantastic and working tirelessly to make this a reality.
“The siting of this unit is the first step in showing residents within East Devon that we are serious with this commitment and to share our vision for what is to be expected from schemes within your communities over the coming months.”
Therese Coffey was under fire today after promoting new UK bathing waters – using a picture of herself standing next to a muddy estuary.
The Environment Secretary tweeted a picture of herself on the River Deben estuary in her Suffolk constituency, one of four new official ‘wild swimming’ areas for the 2023 summer season.
But to coincide with today’s announcement she was forced to take a photo during poor weather at the site in Waldringfield, standing next to a muddy bank and churned-up water in the river, and below rain-filled skies.
It comes as the Government is under pressure to tackle the scale of pollution, especially sewage, being dumped in UK rivers and off the coast.
Locals have reported discovering E. coli bacteria they say is from sewage, at a site only a few miles upstream of the new bathing waters.
Ms Coffey did not allow replies to her tweet but it did not stop other Twitter users poking fun at the image.
The Environment Secretary tweeted a picture of herself on the River Deben estuary in her Suffolk constituency that is one of four new official ‘wild swimming’ areas for the 2023 summer season.
Nigel Pickover, a former editor of the Eastern Daily Press newspaper in East Anglia, said: ‘Isn’t the Waldringfield site just a few swimming strokes downstream from the heavily polluted Martlesham Creek with its huge E. coli issues?’
In her original message, Ms Coffey said: ‘Four new designated bathing sites confirmed today, including Waldringfield on the River Deben in Suffolk Coastal – the first estuary site’…….
East Devon Watch 