Raw sewage discharged in Crawley’s water region every 43-48 minutes

Shocking figures show that on average, Thames Water discharged raw sewage every 48 minutes and Southern Water every 43 minutes, devastating the ecology of our local rivers

Analysis of Environment Agency figures obtained under Freedom of Information requests by the Labour Party, shows that since 2018, Thames Water has pumped raw sewage into our area’s natural environment for a total of 506,294 hours and Southern Water for a total of 575,145 hours.

Cumulatively, this equates to a duration of 57 to 66 years of sewage discharge taking place across our and polluting our local environment. Alongside the water supply failings which have ground economic development in Crawley to a halt, this is a damning indictment of 12 years of Tory failure to hold water bosses to account.

The data also points to a massive increase in the number of monitored discharge hours since 2018, highlighting that the situation is drastically worsening under the Tories, and a consequence of under-regulation and a two-thirds cut in the Environment Agency grant.

The full scale of the pollution is likely to be even greater, given that Event Duration Monitoring does not cover every permitted storm overflow.

Local authorities built the country’s water and sewage systems, the companies which now control them have a natural monopoly over our water supply which they have used to profiteer from residents without reinvesting in the infrastructure they were given. That greed has only been possible due to the continued failure of the Conservatives to regulate against these abuses, protecting our waterways.