CAMPAIGNING TO CLEAN UP OUR RIVERS
Liberal Democrat research shows that sewage overflows into the Spodden, designed to protect the sewage system from extreme storm damage, spilt sewage into the river Spodden upstream of Healey Dell over ninety times last year, for a total of 556.3 hours.
Liberal Democrat candidate for Healey ward, Andy Lord, stated that “This is only one part of the story, these overflows happen when there is heavy rain, but we are also collecting data on the amount of sewage that by-passes the sewage works, straight into our rivers.”
“Liberal Democrats locally and nationally have been submitting Environmental Information Requests to try to build up a picture of how much raw sewage is being released into our rivers, seas and waterways. It is not good news.”
The map on the right shows how much this went on in 2023 into the Spodden upstream of Healey Dell. Unfortunately the data is incomplete because the sanitary sewage overflow at Whitworth is not monitored due to “technical issues” and therefore there is no data for this outflow. Also the volume of discharge is not published. Often the water companies have these figures but don’t release them.
Another issue the Liberal Democrats uncovered is that over one in six monitors were found to be ‘faulty’ and the number of discharges is potentially much higher than feared. An ITV investigation named our local supplier, United Utilities, as being among the worst offenders.
A new analysis of Companies House records and financial reporting has revealed 10 water firms paid no tax at all in 2022/2023. In the previous year it was just 1. Whilst water firms have benefited from government tax cuts, they have paid out over £1bn in dividends to their overseas owners, according to the regulators, Ofwat. At the same time the company has been paying bonuses to it’s top bosses.
Now, to add insult to injury, United Utilities are proposing an above inflation increase in Water Charges of 8%, whilst failing to keep our waterways clean.
Andy Lord stated that “We need to see the water companies stop paying dividends to overseas investors and bonuses to their top brass until they have cleaned up both their act, and our polluted waterways.”
