Latest news with #CharlotteHitchmough
New Statesman
4 days ago
- General
- New Statesman
'I blame Maggie!' How sewage radicalised England
Photo by Andy Soloman/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images In classic English style, it was raining on the first day of the hosepipe ban in the Wiltshire market town of Marlborough. But this isn't classic England any more. Residents are furious – and not just about the prospect of their yellowing lawns. Hosepipe bans used to cause a disgruntled ripple across the Tory shires. Today, they open the floodgates to a torrent of rage against environmental vandalism and corporate greed that makes the middle-aged of Middle England sound like radical socialists. 'It goes far deeper now,' said one lifelong local. 'The trust is broken.' Why, residents ask, should we save water when the water companies have been frittering our money away? With sewage in the local River Kennet, rising water bills (the same local produces a letter informing him his water bill is going up £19 a month), and flooding in the town centre earlier this year, Thames Water is a dirty word in this once clean and pleasant land. I'm told children in some local schools have even been asked to bring in a spare pair of shoes – one pair to walk through the sewage-splattered ground outside, and another for indoors. The golf club put their own water tank in two years ago, bypassing a reliance on Thames Water. 'There's definitely been a change in mood,' says Charlotte Hitchmough, 56, who has been campaigning against sewage overflows in the River Kennet for two decades. 'It's a critical part of living here – the river defines the landscape, and because the water's quite mobile it's really different month-to-month: people here talk about the river like they talk about the weather.' A new government plan to streamline and strengthen regulation of the water industry hasn't quelled the anger. Locals I hear from feel they've been lumped with Thames Water's debt and believe 'they're cruising around the world on superyachts'. The proposed changes also don't cover the consequences of road run-off into rivers, which is environmentally damaging and visibly so. 'You can see the river change colour,' says Hitchmough. 'That's probably going to get worse, not better – it's the next big, scary thing.' Having started her career as a consultant for the newly privatised water industry, she now – like some other fellow residents – sees greater state oversight as the answer. 'Profit shouldn't be part of it because, fundamentally, water is not a resource that belongs to anyone. Water is a source that none of us can live without. It was like privatising air.' It should no longer come as a surprise that even in Marlborough – whose constituencies have never been anything but Conservative for a century – you hear support for renationalisation and the conclusion, as worded by one local: 'I blame Maggie!' This year, the Lib Dems and independent councillors took control of Wiltshire Council from the Conservatives. From seats in the south-west to the Blue Wall (where affluent commuter-belt and suburban seats are turning away from the Conservatives), voters are deeply concerned about the sewage spills, suggest new focus groups and polling released in May by More in Common, a research agency specialising in public attitudes towards politics and policy. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Sixty-one per cent of those polled say reducing sewage pollution should be the government's highest priority or a high priority. They still just about blame the Tories: half of voters say the previous Conservative government did a bad job on tackling sewage pollution, and 43 per cent say the same of the current Labour administration. Pollution of rivers and seas was a particularly motivating issue for people who voted Lib Dem in 2024. Asked for the top reasons why they voted for the party last July, more than one third (34 per cent) chose at least one environmental reason – the most popular being the party's campaign against sewage pollution. Local Lib Dem leaflets accusing Tory MPs of voting to pump sewage into their constituency rivers still haunt the Conservative Party – blamed in part for electoral losses in their former heartlands in the south. But it's not just Lib Dem/Tory marginals. Even Nigel Farage's Reform UK has a policy to take half the industry back into public ownership. 'In focus groups from Worthing to Clacton to Ilford North, people were bringing up sewage last year in the run-up to the election and in some since,' revealed Luke Tryl of More in Common. 'You get this with every type of voter, because it's such a visible example of state failure – it is up there with failing to stop the boats, because people can't understand why government is allowing it to happen and isn't able to stop it. That's what makes it such a potent force.' For years, polling has indicated growing public appetite for state intervention and left-economic solutions – a trend exacerbated by the pandemic. Voters of every party support more regulation of water companies, for example, and a majority feels water should be publicly owned. While these sentiments may have benefited Labour in opposition, they aren't necessarily good news for the party in government as it pursues cautious, incremental fixes to broken bits of the state. Whether you were a Conservative voter fearing a Labour government, or a supporter who backed it, you see Labour as the party most likely to stick it to bonus-hungry executives and asset-stripping investors. Ministers' arguments about fiscal rectitude and balancing books fail to resonate because they 'go against the grain' of the party's traditional brand, according to one polling analyst. All the while, voters watch dirty rivers wriggling through their towns and grow impatient for change. If Labour's plan to regulate water better doesn't bring tangible results before the next election, the confused politics of England will – like its weather – become less and less predictable. Thames Water has been contacted for comment. [See also: Who is accountable in privatised Britain?] Related
BBC News
29-05-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Thames Water fine 'should be spent on River Kennet clean up'
Water quality campaigners say they are delighted at the record £122.7m fine handed to Thames Water, but have said only a complete overhaul of the industry can clean up the UK's company was hit with the fine by regulator Ofwat for repeatedly breaching rules over sewage spills and making payouts to shareholders when it is in dire financial Action for the River Kennett (Arc) said the sum must now be spent on reversing environmental damage caused by years of spills, adding that wastewater infrastructure in the area is in "a desperate state".Thames Water said it takes its responsibility towards the environment "very seriously". The River Kennett is a chalk stream that runs from Avebury down to Reading where it joins the River runs a nature reserve in the area for outreach work and children's education days, which is frequently flooded with flows from nearby treatment works and also regularly spills out of manhole covers, Arc Hitchmough, Arc's director, told BBC Wiltshire: "I hope that these fines from the water companies are ring fenced to undo the environmental damage that's been caused - because Ofwat were clear that the lion's share of that fine was for failure to treat sewage properly." But she warned that as it stands, wastewater infrastructure in the area operated by Thames Water is in "a desperate state".She said the use of emergency measures such as tankers to ferry sewage to treatment works, or temporary treatment units to pump water directly out of sewers for cleaning, were "completely unsustainable"."This isn't the behaviour of a responsible, well run company. This is desperate fire fighting," she said. James Wallace, chief executive of campaign group River Action, said it was good to see the government enforcing sewage laws, but pointed out the fine is only a tiny fraction of Thames Water's £22bn called on the government to put the company "out of its misery" and revoke its licence to Wallace said the government had a number of mechanisms at its disposal to bring Thames Water under its direct control, such as placing it in special he wants to see an end to the privatisation of the water industry."We know that the privatisation experiment since 1989 has failed abjectly because of all the pollution and all of these debts that have accrued," he Wallace said there were numerous models for running water companies such as nationalisation, placing them under the control of local authorities, or turning them into not-for-profit entities."What we need to do is take action," he said. Speaking earlier this year, Environment Secretary Steve Reed agreed that the water sector in England and Wales "urgently needs fixing".But he ruled out nationalisation, saying it would cost up to £100bn, adding that waterways would continue to be polluted while private ownership structures were the government wants private investment to upgrade the sewerage system and the Thames Water fine on Wednesday, Mr Reed added: "The government has launched the toughest crackdown on water companies in history."The era of profiting from failure is over. The government is cleaning up our rivers, lakes and seas for good." 'Already made progress' A Thames Water spokesperson said: "We take our responsibility towards the environment very seriously and note that Ofwat acknowledges we have already made progress to address issues raised in the investigation relating to storm overflows."The dividends were declared following a consideration of the Company's legal and regulatory obligations."Our lenders continue to support our liquidity position and our equity raise process continues."
