Having clean rivers and seas is no pipe dream

It used to be the case that if you wanted to catch a bus from Northern Road, midwinter, you’d have definitely needed to put your wellies on. Every year Cosham’s roundabout was underwater. Raw sewage regularly ran through houses and gardens on Portsdown Hill.

And Portsmouth’s sea defences were woeful. Over the last 14 years we have spent hundreds of millions on rectifying this.

I think most people would acknowledge the work and the difference it has made not only to water management but also the public realm and look of our shoreline.

But there is one area which remains a deep concern and that is the discharge of untreated sewage into the sea or waterways, known as storm overflows. This occurs because much of the sewage system doesn’t separate our storm water from waste water.

When it rains hard excess water needs to be released otherwise pressure would see it coming out of our toilets and into homes. This issue was a daunting one requiring massive investment. Now not only is progress being made, but we can see by when such discharges will be a thing of the past.

When Labour left office in 2010 they had completely failed to improve storm overflow monitoring. Today, 100 per cent of overflows are monitored. We know exactly what is happening and why. Where there are illegal discharges enforcement action can now be taken by the Environment Agency.

Local people have helped improve this monitoring by Southern Water. Their lobbying, including through the water forum established by myself, Alan Mak MP and Gilliam Keegan

MP, led to an independent review of the beachbuoy monitoring system. A few weeks ago we saw the results of that, and we can expect further improvement to local monitoring as a consequence. I want to thank all who worked on this.

We have also taken a much stronger approach to enforcement. Since 2015 the

EA has concluded 60 prosecutions and is currently conducting the largest ever criminal investigation into non-compliance by water and sewage companies.

But the only thing that will reduce overflows is infrastructure investment. Massive amounts of work have already been done.

About a third of the worked needed has been done, the next third will be complete by 2027 – including all works to reduce storm overflows in Portsmouth Harbour.

There are hundreds of schemes across the whole sewer network, but perhaps one of the most significant is that soon only storm water, not sewage will be released into our harbours. The work to modernise our sewer system and stop discharges is the largest project of its kind in the world. In a few years, when complete, it will be something to be proud of.