I won’t insult anyone’s intelligence by suggesting that you believe our MP’s claim that he is responsible for holding South West Water to account. Surfers Against Sewage are doing brilliant work (checkout the stats for SWW here https://www.sas.org.uk/water-quality/south-west-water/ ) and please sign their petition. Our wonderful Sid Valley Biodiversity Group river team with the Town Council, and EDDC officers and councillors, have worked tirelessly to challenge the data that SWW publish, including finding numerous errors in their timings and volumes for sewage releases onto our beach (many during times where it just wasn’t raining!)
Claiming a victory for having some money invested into upgrading the system is ludicrous. This money SHOULD ALWAYS be invested – before any shareholder dividends. In my opinion water should never have been privatised. It is not something that should be profited on but should be a service that we all pay for and expect to be fit for purpose.
Lastly, our MP claiming that he ‘did not vote for water companies to dump sewage, why would he when he lives near the sea?’ (carbon event, March 2023, All Saints Church, Sidmouth) is so easy to disprove. He voted FOR the environment bill but AGAINST the Lords amendment (Duke of Wellington) which would have done the following:
Clause 80, page 74, line 34 addition, [place the]
“Duty on sewerage undertakers to take all reasonable steps to ensure untreated sewage is not discharged from storm overflows
(1) A sewerage undertaker must demonstrate improvements in the sewerage systems and progressive reductions in the harm caused by untreated sewage discharges.
(2) The Secretary of State, the Director and the Environment Agency must exercise their respective functions under this and any other Act to secure compliance with this duty.”
It’s easy enough to Google explanations – here is one https://www.windrushwasp.org/single-post/did-mps-vote-to-keep-dumping-untreated-sewage
Water companies argued that it would have cost billions to sort out the problem. This wasn’t accurately costed. What price should we put on not pumping sewage into our seas? And should we carry on paying dividends while this is happening?
I know what I think, but it seems that Mr Jupp disagrees. Don’t be fooled.
It goes against everything in me to share something from the Daily Fail but this is what we are trying to counter. I still swim in the sea, and my son will do surf lifesaving, swimming and surfing all summer, but you can’t help but think about it. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11936917/Analysis-shows-water-companies-dumped-sewage-Blue-Flag-beaches-1-504-times-year.html?ito=whatsapp_share_article-top
