They shouldn’t have to worry about being able to enjoy its coastal hotspots or whether they are swimming in sewage infested waters." “Families flock to the North East coast to enjoy the British summer.
“The Tories continuing to allow sewage dumping onto our beaches and into our waters isn’t just a destruction of our natural environment, it’s also a significant public health hazard." Jim McMahon, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said: “A Labour government would enact a clean water plan, including unlimited fines for those who break sewage rules.” “Since 2016, when Liz Truss cut £80m of sewage monitors at DEFRA, raw sewage discharge has more than doubled." “I voted for an amendment to strengthen the Environment Bill against precisely this dumping of waste. A bank holiday weekend swim in the sea is now a serious health hazard." “It is a disgrace, frankly, that the Government let water companies pump raw sewage into our beautiful and historic beaches and rivers without consequence. This comes amid revelations that the zombie Tory government shelved sewage discharge reduction plans at the beginning of August – but has since u-turned due to mounting public pressure.Ĭommenting on the news, Member of Parliament for Washington and Sunderland West, Sharon Hodgson MP, said: This equates to a shocking average of a sewage spill taking place every 23 minutes over a 5-year period. Labour Party analysis also shows that between 20, there were 114,333 spill events into North Eastern waters.
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The full scale of the pollution is likely to be even greater, given that Event Duration Monitoring does not cover every permitted storm overflow. This highlights that the situation is only worsening under the Tories, and is a consequence of their two-thirds budgetary cut to the Environment Agency grant, which covers environmental surveillance and enforcement. The data also points to a 1399% increase in the number of monitored discharge hours, between 20. Leisure and tourism spots across the North East are being devastated by 62 years-worth of raw sewage discharge, Labour Party analysis has found.Īnalysis of Environment Agency figures obtained under Freedom of Information requests by the party, shows that since 2017, raw sewage has been pumped into the North East’s natural environment for a total of 551,851 hours.Īreas impacted include popular tourist and bathing spots such as rivers, lakes, and beaches – spoiling areas of natural beauty and risking public health.Ĭumulatively, this equates to a duration of 22,993 days or 62 years of sewage discharge taking place across the North East and polluting its environment, a damning indictment of 12 years of Tory failure to hold water bosses to account. MPS is not an insurance company. All the benefits of membership of MPS are discretionary as set out in the Memorandum and Articles of Association. MPS® and Medical Protection® are registered trademarks.Shocking figures show that on average, Northumbrian Water discharged raw sewage every 23 minutes, devastating the North East’s tourism and leisure hotspots.
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