Sewage dumping continues, as the Conservatives fail to act

Two and a half years on since Crawley’s Conservative MP voted to continue to allow water companies to dump raw sewage into local waterways, the problem has predictably continued to get worse.

In the last year, Crawley has experienced almost double the number of sewage dumpings in our watercourses, with 69 individual releases. Across the UK the numbers being admitted to hospital with diseases limed to waterbourne infections has risen by 60% since the Conservative Party came to power.

How can the Conservatives claim to be putting the country back on course when they can’t even stop companies from increasingly dumping faecal matter into our rivers? To say nothing of the billions pocketed by these companies while allowing critical national infrastructure to rot.

The Labour Party has committed to putting water companies into special measures to get the water cleam. Strengthening regulation and regulatory powers and blocking any bous payment to water company bosses until they start cleaning up their act. This will include an end to the self-monitoring of water outlets, enabling the Government to track what is actually taking place and to hold the water companies to account.

This isn’t a complicated problem, but it does need a Government with the will to address it. The Conservatives have proven that they are on the side of the water companies, only Labour is ready to stand up for the British public.