Image description: People attending a march. A man is wearing a green t-shirt which reads “don’t poison our water”. Image credit The Climate Reality Project.
Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) have released their annual water quality report, which “brings together sewage discharge data, sickness data and figures from our Safer Seas and Rivers Service app to reveal the sheer scale of the UK’s sewage crisis and calls for urgent action”.
Data revealed under freedom of information law shows water companies were collectively set an Environment Agency target of a 40% reduction in pollution incidents, but instead recorded a 30% increase in 2024. This meant the number of pollution incidents in 2024 was the highest in a decade.
SAS also said it received 1,853 sickness reports through its Safer Seas & Rivers Service app last year – an average of five people a day. Around 331 people had to see a doctor, of which 79% of them reported their doctor had attributed their illness to sewage pollution.
The report also revealed that despite failures to reduce pollution and new regulations intended to reduce profit for executives who preside over sewage spills, shareholders were paid £1.2bn in 2023-24 despite the record number of hours raw sewage was discharged into England’s waters. Yet under the new investment period, which starts this year, customers are facing an average hike in bills of £123 so water companies can invest in infrastructure upgrades.
The report offers detailed breakdowns for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, where blue-green algae has been detected in Lough Neagh for the first time.
Industry response
A spokesperson for the industry body Water UK said: “No sewage spill is ever acceptable and water companies are investing £12bn to almost halve spills from storm overflows by 2030. This is part of the largest amount of money ever spent on the natural environment to help support economic growth, build more homes, secure our water supplies and end sewage entering our rivers and seas.”
An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “This level of pollution is unacceptable and we are taking a number of steps to hold water companies to account if they pollute our rivers and waterways. It is now a statutory requirement for water companies to produce annual plans showing how they will meet our expectation of reducing pollution incidents by 40%.”
How can the system change?
Surfers Against Sewage offers five key principles a new system must include to End Sewage Pollution:
- Legal Priority to Protect Public and Environmental Health
- Democratic Decision Making
- Value for Money
- Tough Independent Regulators
- Transparency
Jo Jolly, Ofwat’s Director of Environment and Innovation, has offered insights into how she believes innovation and collaboration are transforming the UK’s water system to tackle critical challenges like leakage, emissions, and pollution while building a sustainable future. Priorities include: Incentivising solutions; Making data consistent, open and transparent; The new centre to prove new anti-leak technologies; From a third of industrial emissions to net zero; Innovation leading to innovation.
Professor Sir Dieter Helm, Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford and Fellow in Economics at New College, Oxford has also published a paper aptly titled: From the unsustainable to the sustainable: how to reform water and sewerage in England and Wales.