THOUSANDS of people protested at beaches, rivers and lakes at the weekend to demand an end to sewage discharges.
Co-ordinated by Surfers Against Sewage, Saturday’s protests took place at over 30 spots from Cornwall to Edinburgh.
Dinah Sershi and Georgina Palffy attended a protest at Shepperton Open Water, where they swim regularly.
Ms Sershi said: “I’m a woman in my fifties, and I know a lot of people in this community are in their forties and fifties and find the water an incredible way of managing the menopause symptoms.”
Ms Palffy said: “We do swim in other places, but none of them are quite as magical as this, and none of them have the amazing clean water that they get here, which is something really special.”
At Gyllyngvase Beach in Falmouth, surfers paddled out carrying placards reading “cut the crap.” Chief executive of Surfers Against Sewage Giles Bristow told protesters: “This is our beach, our ocean, and we are reclaiming this place from the polluters.
“A year ago we had an apology from the water companies, but did they change? No. Pollution events jumped last year, apparently because it was raining. It’s a shame they didn’t know it rains here.”
Among the latest water scandals. leaked documents revealed last week that United Utilities allowed 10 million litres of raw sewage to be illegally pumped in Lake Windermere in February. It did not report the incident until 13 hours after it started.
The firm told the BBC that it was “caused by an unexpected fault in the telecommunications network in the area, which United Utilities was not notified about.”
On Thursday, the water supplier, which supplies over seven million customers in the north-west of England, posted anuual revenue of £1.95 billion, up 8.1 per cent year on year.
Environment Agency statistics show that there were more than 464,056 sewage spills last year, up by 54 per cent compared with 2022.
On Wednesday, South West Water failed to deliver safe and fresh water in Brixham, Devon. Customers were told to boil their tap water after hundreds of people fell ill with diarrhoea, vomiting and stomach pains.
The contaminated water was believed to have contained cryptosporidium, a parasitic bug that causes severe stomach issues.
