Call for protection of Wrekin waterways after 544 sewage dumps last year

According to analysis of official data from the Environment Agency by the party, Severn Trent discharged sewage in The Wrekin’s waterways for 2,167 hours in 2023, including in the River Tern, River Roden, and Strine Brook.

Now the Lib Dems have called for rivers in the area to be afforded protection.

In their manifesto launch this week, the party announced a large expansion of marine protected areas and a new Blue Flag status for rivers. This would set legally binding targets to prevent sewage dumping in those sites, giving special protected status for swimmers and wildlife.

“Our precious waterways have been destroyed after years of a Conservative government letting water firms get away with environmental vandalism,” said Anthony Lowe, the Liberal Democrat candidate for The Wrekin.

“It is time we got tough on polluting and profiteering water firms, yet Conservative MPs have stood by whilst swimmers have become ill and wildlife killed by sewage discharges.

“This scandal has to end now. The Conservative party has failed to protect swimmers and wildlife.

“The Liberal Democrats will have the boldest manifesto on cleaning up our rivers and coastlines. Families should be free to swim safely in the knowledge that our waters are not polluted with sewage.”

Wilfred Denga, Severn Trent bathing rivers lead said: “While there are many factors that contribute to river health, we’re making progress in playing our part to reduce our impact, and this year our impact has reduced to 14 per cent.

“We’ve helped do this by continuing to invest millions of pounds, including our £78m bathing rivers project that’s benefitting Shropshire as we move stretches of river towards bathing quality.

“This work includes treatment work upgrades to reduce spills, installing cutting edge ozone technology and working with local farmers to go even further to protect the water quality from agricultural run-off.

“This work is industry leading and is in addition to our huge £450m engineering programme announced last month, which will see us reduce spills from active storm overflows by 20 per cent in 900 locations across the Midlands by the end of 2024.”