Whip water companies into line to save beaches

News of a total of 25,000 illegal discharges of raw sewage into the country’s bathing waters last year has infuriated Bridgwater and West Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger because of the threat to the UK’s newly buoyant tourist industry, he tells Defra Sec

DEAR George Place yourself, if you will, in the mind of a seaside hotel proprietor who is welcoming guests.

Who ask him if the beach is indeed clean and if it is indeed safe to bathe – as appears to be the case from all the blurb in the holiday guide they read.

What does he tell them, knowing that in the previous year there have been a number of occasions when raw sewage has been illegally discharged into the local waters?

Does he (a) brazen it out and say ‘yes’ in the hope that they haven’t read anything about the problem and there will be no awkward supplementaries; or (b) give a totally honest, though qualified positive response along the lines of ‘well, generally’. In which case they will almost certainly demand further and better particulars and he will have to explain that there have been sporadic, un-signalled sewage discharges and therefore under the current circumstances he cannot give any guarantee of there being no further such incidents on the days they choose to go bathing or, indeed, that their health will not be compromised as a result of taking to the contaminated waters.

Takes rather a shine off things, doesn’t it? Yet this is precisely the kind of scenario we are likely to see acted out this summer thanks to the way we have allowed water companies to operate under the radar so unaccountably for so long.

A total of 25,000 discharges of raw sewage into coastal bathing waters used by families and holidaymakers in the last year alone is a shameful record, George – and there is no getting away from it.

I’m sure you – as do I – retain memories of how filthy some (in fact many) of our beaches were before we were made subject to the EU’s water quality directives. I’m sure you will equally recall all the grumbling there was the about the hundreds of millions that were going to have to be invested around the coast to end the Victorian practice of dumping all our waste conveniently, cheaply, but irresponsibly, into the sea.

I’m sure you will recall all the campaigning by Surfers Against Sewage which applied so much pressure to ensure the clean-up took place on time and exactly as promised.

And I have no doubt you can bring to mind the huge fillip to the tourism industry that resulted from our eventually being able to fly blue flags for top quality bathing water from Seaton to Scarborough.

Are you going to stand by and watch as that success is allowed to unravel? Are you going to preside over our resorts acquiring the damning stigma of dirty beaches again? Are you going to sit back and merely observe when all the uptake in business resulting from people discovering during lockdown that you don’t need to go abroad for clean bathing water and decent holidays starts to be eroded?

Or are you going to whip the water companies into line and apply a rigid, penalty-backed timetable for improvements rather than allowing them to do something to remedy this atrocious situation when they feel like it?

I should be more than grateful for answers.

Yours ever

Ian

> Scarborough South Bay had an ‘advice against bathing’ notice in place last June due to poor water quality