Channel 4′ s recent hard hitting docu-drama Dirty Business – click here to see the trailer – will have confirmed what most of us know, and many of us have experienced first hand, about the failure to protect our rivers from sewage pollution and the devastating consequence for both wildlife and people. Marlborough-based Action for the River Kennet has been highlighting this issue for more than twenty years.
A statement from ARK pointed out that Windrush Against Sewage Pollution’s rigorous analysis of illegal sewage discharges, showcased in Dirty Business, ranks the Pang as the most “victimised” river in Thames Water’s region – and there are quite a few to choose from – with the worst offending works being at Hampstead Norreys.
“On the SAC-protected River Lambourn,” ARK’s statement continues, “where the works at East Shefford have been upgraded, illegal spills have still occurred. WASP’s analysis raises some serious questions about the sewage treatment standards.”
Nor does the Kennet get a clean bill of health, being ranked tenth in terms of rivers suffering most from illegal spills. To pick two examples, the works at Kingsclere discharged into the Kingsclere Brook illegally on 165 occasions between 2020 and 2025 while the ill-fated Winterbourne discharged illegally 178 times to the tiny Winterbourne stream during the same period. 343 incidents – and that’s just from two sites.
Most people who’d committed 343 crimes in five years would be locked up. WASP estimated that TW’s charge sheet for this period contains a staggering 8,499 separate incidents, with more being added every day.
“The programme highlighted the fact that our rivers aren’t safe for recreation,” ARK added, “and would not reliably meet bathing-water standards because of the concentration of E.Coli and Total Coliforms present.
“Communities including Aldbourne and Stanford Dingley still paddle through sewage on a daily basis in winter and the impacts are not recorded in any figures. We need rapid investment in sewage treatment that is fit for purpose combined with strong regulation.”
You can add your voice to the call for clean water now on this page on the Rivers Trust website.
A. number of groups in the West Berkshire area, including ARK, the Lambourn Valley Flood Forum, the Pang Valley Flood Forum and the Sewage Action Group for the Upper Lambourn Valley have long been actively compigning on this issue and continue to do so.
The header image has been tken from Channel 4’s webpage for Dirty Business.
