South Oxfordshire District Councillor and Thames River Champion Jo Robb has called for water companies to be held to account and for urgent action to be taken to save our rivers.
Cllr Robb was speaking at a recent protest in Port Meadow, Oxford (23 January) against sewage pollution. The event was organised by local campaigners after Thames Water failed to notify local groups of a sewage discharge on Christmas Day.
Jo, who is a Green Councillor for Woodcote and Rotherfield, and a year-round river swimmer, said: “Enough is enough. Every year, at almost every sewage outfall along the 220 mile length of this river, raw sewage is being dumped, in wet weather and dry, not in exceptional circumstances. This is happening year-round for no particular reason other than a total failure to invest in infrastructure, and the total failure of our regulators to enforce the law against our water companies.
Jo addressed an assembled crowd of several hundred at the protest, and spoke alongside local campaigners, representatives from wildlife and river trusts, as well as local MP Layla Moran.
Highlighting that groups such as Henley Mermaids and Windrush Against Sewage Pollution have been blowing the whistle on the scandal sewage pollution for years, Jo added, “we would never tolerate raw sewage being dumped on our football pitches, on our tennis courts, on our golf courses, or on our netball courts. And yet we’ve arrived at a situation in which our rivers are being treated as open sewers by privately owned water companies taking profit for shareholders and paying big bonuses to their bosses.”
“It is our river, it is not your sewer”.
In a damning report released last week, the parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee described a chemical cocktail of raw sewage, microplastics and agricultural runoff threatening nature and public health, and making our rivers the worst in Europe. Only 14% of English rivers enjoying a good ecological status, and not a single English river free of chemical hazards.
Watch Jo Robb’s full speech on Youtube.