Environment

England’s raw sewage taskforce met only once in last year, FoI request shows

The storm overflows taskforce set up by the government to tackle raw sewage discharges by water companies in England has met only once in the last year, a freedom of information request has revealed.

The group, which was promoted by ministers as evidence they were taking the issue of raw sewage discharges by water companies seriously, is supposed to meet fortnightly, according to its mission statement.

But in response to a freedom of information request by the Good Law Project, officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the taskforce met just once in the last year.

The storm overflows taskforce was set up in August 2020 after the Guardian first uncovered the scale of raw sewage discharges into rivers by water firms. It is made up of representatives from government, regulators, the water industry and environmental NGOs. Its terms of reference state: “The taskforce will meet fortnightly, with exact frequency and timings of meetings at the discretion of the chairperson in consultation with the members.” Its goals are “proposals to significantly reduce the frequency and impact of sewage discharges from storm overflows”, and “short-term actions to accelerate progress to reduce the harm caused by storm overflows”.

Last August the group published its storm overflows reduction plan, which gives water firms a deadline of 2035 to reduce the amount of sewage flowing into bathing water and areas of ecological importance. The companies had a deadline of 2050 to stop dumping raw sewage elsewhere.

George Eustice, the environment secretary at the time, said water companies would have to invest £56bn over 25 years to tackle storm sewage discharges by 2050. But the plan was heavily criticised as too weak and is to be challenged in court by the Good Law Project and the campaign group WildFish. Since that publication the taskforce has not met again.

The Good Law Project sought the dates of all fortnightly meetings of the taskforce between 1 April 2022 and 25 April this year, and Defra revealed it had met only on 30 August 2022. There were no follow-up meetings.

Defra said that as the taskforce had published its storm overflows reduction plan in August last year it had not met again. “Since last summer officials have continued to take action on sewage discharges, including the development of the water restoration fund, launching the continuous water quality and event duration monitoring consultation, and the variable monetary penalties consultation, as well as continuing to work with regulators to hold water companies to account. We have also recently announced a new statutory target for storm overflows and plans to consult on expanding the storm overflow discharge reduction plan.”

England has about 14,500 storm overflows, which are supposed to be used in exceptionally heavy rain to stop the sewage backing up into properties. But water firms have routinely dumped raw sewage into rivers and seas even in dry weather.

In 2021 the taskforce published a report which estimated that the cost of cutting millions of hours of raw sewage discharges from storm overflows would be £150bn-£660bn – figures challenged by some experts.

Emma Dearnaley, legal director at the Good Law Project, said of the taskforce’s single meeting since April 2022: “That is, unfortunately, typical of this government’s laidback approach to the sewage crisis blighting our country. We need the government to impose tougher measures to stop water companies from polluting our waters and bring this unacceptable situation to an end. That is why we are supporting a legal challenge to [get] in place a much more robust and urgent plan.”

14,500

Storm overflows in England. Water firms have routinely used the pipes to dump sewage in rivers and seas