Lincolnshire County Council call on the Government to tackle sewage spills
Lincolnshire County Council is urging central government to take action to tackle the thousands of reported sewage spills and storm overflows into the county’s rivers and seas in recent years.
Members of council’s Flood and Water Management Scrutiny Committee have agreed to write to the government to implement tighter measures on water companies to prevent further incidents.
While data for 2023 has not yet been released, Anglian Water recorded 3,420 spills in 2022 alone. These spills have led to pollution alerts being issued for multiple beaches along the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire coast. While not illegal, academics and environmental groups highlight that releasing sewage poses a significant risk to human health.
In recent months, the water regulator, Ofwat, has told the company to pay back around £22 million, by reducing customers’ bills, following a review of performance targets. This was specifically focusing on measures related to pollution and sewage leaks.
Coun Thomas Ashton (Con), committee chairman, clarified that the motion to urge the government to take action following a discussion at a Full Council meeting in September.
He stated: “Across the chamber, there was a unanimous view that sewage, and untreated sewage, should not be discharged into our watercourses, rivers or the sea.”
The representative for Tattershall Castle ward later expanded on a comments by Coun Paul Skinner (Con), who stated that he enjoed kayaking.
Coun Ashton questioned: “Would you want to kayak in the river downstream from a storm overflow?”
“Mankind has been discharging sewage into rivers for hundreds of years – it became a significant issue during the Industrial Revolution.
“We’ve come a long way since then, but there is still very clearly a long way to go. I would genuinely like to think that in 2024, it is no longer acceptable for this to be common practice.
“Anglian Water, as with other water companies, is a private company that generates billions of pounds in profit for their shareholders every year, I don’t think it’s unreasonable, through government regulation, for those shareholders to spend a greater amount of money on preventing this from happening.”
Acknowledging that a considerable amount of planning and investment would be needed, he suggested that maybe in 20 years’ time, sewage discharges could be stopped altogether.
Following the meeting, Chris Miller, Head of Environment at LCC, echoed Cllr Ashton’s thoughts.
He added: “Obviously, no one wants to have sewage in the system. We don’t want it in places where there are going to be clear issues for biodiversity and the natural environment. As the chairman said in the meeting, if we can eradicate this, that’s great, but it’s going to take quite a long process to make sure the infrastructure is in place.
“There are regulations around the amount that can be put through the system, but we would obviously like to see that reduced significantly for the protection of the environment and the people on the coast.”
Matt Moore, Flood Partnerships Manager at Anglian Water, outlined that the company would be investing over £28 million between 2025 and 2030 on improvements to storm overflows within Lincolnshire County Council.
However, he was challenged by Coun Kevin Clarke (Lab) who asked how they would be funding that. To which, he confirmed that it would be predominantly led by investments from shareholders, but alongside increases to people’s water bills.
Moore was approached after the meeting to discuss the sewage discharges in greater detail but declined to comment.