People living along polluted Thames file legal complaint to force water firm to act
Communities across south-east England are filing the first coordinated legal complaints that sewage pollution by Thames Water negatively affects their lives.Thames Water failed to complete upgrades to 98 treatment plants and pumping stations which have the worst records for sewage pollution into the environment, despite a promise to invest in them over the last five years.People in 13 areas including Hackney, Oxford, Richmond upon Thames and Wokingham are sending statutory nuisance complaints to their local authorities demanding accountability from Thames Water and urgent action.At several sites it is not just raw sewage from storm overflows that causes pollution but also the quality of treated effluent coming from Thames Water facilities, which presents a direct threat to public health, the campaigners say.At Thames’s Newbury sewage treatment plant, raw effluent discharges into the River Kennet, a protected chalk stream.
Data shows raw sewage discharges from the plant increased by 240% between 2019 and 2024 from 482 hours to 1,630 hours.Thames says the plant is among its 26 most polluting sites.Thames wants the water regulator, Ofwat, to allow it to charge customers £1.18bn over the next five years for the upgrades it has failed to carry out.But the regulator has refused to let it pass the full cost on to customers, allowing only £793m, as it deems bill payers have already funded the upgrades.
It says any escalation of costs should be borne by Thames Water.With the company failing to act, people living in the catchment are turning to statutory nuisance complaints under section 79 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.In letters to their local authorities, they are asking for decisive action by Thames to stop its sewage pollution that is causing harm along the river.A statutory nuisance is an activity that unreasonably interferes with the use or enjoyment of land and is likely to cause prejudice or injury to health.Those living in the area say sewage pollution from Thames’s failing sites and infrastructure has made rivers unsafe and disrupted recreation, sport, local businesses and everyday enjoyment.
They cite a 16-year-old rower from Henley rowing club who became unwell after training on the river; tests confirmed he had contracted E coli.His illness coincided with his GCSE exams, preventing him from revising and sitting some papers.In West Berkshire, people are highlighting the case of a kayaker who capsized and became unwell over the following days.And at Tagg’s Island in Hampton, south-west London, five children became ill after playing in the River Thames near Hurst Park.Laura Reineke, who lives in Henley-on-Thames and founded the campaign group Friends of the Thames, said: “People here are fed up with living beside a river that’s being treated like an open sewer.
We’ve submitted a nuisance complaint to our local authority because what Thames Water is doing is unacceptable.”Citizen testing of the river has found treated effluent leaving the Henley plant has contained E coli at levels 30 times higher than bathing water safe levels, calculated using Thames Water’s data released under an environmental information request.“Local residents are angry and determined to hold this company accountable for the damage it’s causing to our river and our community,” Reineke said.Thames has already received a record £104m fine by Ofwat over environmental breaches involving sewage spills across its network, after failing to operate and manage its treatment works and wastewater networks effectively.Amy Fairman, the head of campaigns at River Action, which is supporting the coordinated complaints, said: “This action is about fixing sewage pollution in the Thames for good, not compensating people for past failings.
“Each local authority must investigate these complaints and, where statutory nuisance is found to exist, issue an abatement notice and take enforcement action,Councils now have a legal duty to act,”She said there was extensive evidence of performance failures at Thames Water, which was on the brink of insolvency,Despite this ministers had not put the company into special administration, a process that would allow for urgent infrastructure upgrades, put public interest ownership and governance first, and protect communities and the environment,A Thames Water spokesperson said they are working on a big upgrade to their network and aiming to invest £9.
5 billion (in 2022/23 prices) across their wastewater assets over the next five years.“We informed Ofwat, the Environment Agency and other industry stakeholders in August 2023 that some Water Industry National Environmental Programme (WINEP) schemes would not be delivered on time.Despite spending all of the allowance in AMP7, we have been open about the challenges of delivering all the elements of the WINEP7 programme, which was impacted by cost increases that were higher than the inflation index applied to our allowances.” They added that farming, industry, road runoff, wildlife, and increasingly extreme weather also play a role in river health.
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