"Truly Shocking" Analysis Shows National Parks Disproportionately Impacted By Sewage Spills
National Parks such as Snowdonia have been shown to be more likely to be subject to sewage dumping (Alamy)
4 min read
Untreated sewage was spilled into the UK’s National Parks 95 times each day last year in what have been called "truly shocking" findings.
Analysis by PoliticsHome of 540 sewage outfalls inside or on the border of England and Wales’ 13 National Parks found that untreated sewage was released nearly 35,000 times last year, leaking nearly 400,000 hours worth of toxic effluent into protected natural spaces.
The findings also show that National Parks were more likely per capita to be subject to sewage dumping than the rest of the country.
Despite making up just 0.67 per cent of the English and Welsh population, the protected environmental spaces made up 6 per cent of the total number of sewage spills in the nations — nine times more than its expected proportion of spills.
Old infrastructure mixed with a high tourist population in the areas can leave National Parks more at risk of sewage spills.
Nationwide, raw sewage was discharged into waterways for 3.6m hours in 2023 by England’s privatised water firms, more than double the figure in 2022.
The worst affected National Park was Snowdonia, Wales, where 73 operating outfalls released untreated sewage 5,925 times for a total of 65,479 hours.
It was followed by Dartmoor, in the south of England, which recorded 4,716 spills for 59,970 hours.
In third were two parks: the Yorkshire Dales and the South Downs. The former recorded the third highest number of spills at 3,689 while the latter recorded a higher amount of sewage being released in its spills, with 50,515,9 hours of sewage being released.
The outfall that released the most sewage in the country was at Lavant Wastewater Treatment Works, North of Chichester in the South Downs. It released untreated sewage 286 times for a total of 6542.31 hours.
That’s the equivalent of releasing sewage for 18 hours of every day in 2023.
The new Labour Government pledged in its election manifesto to crack down on the private water companies that manage the UK’s sewage systems.
That included automatic severe fines for water companies, proposals to give the regulator the powers to block the payment of any bonuses to bosses who fail to address sewage spills, the potential for levying criminal charges against repeated offender bosses and ending the self-monitoring and reporting of pollution incidents by companies themselves.
A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs told PoliticsHome: “We will never look the other way while water companies pump record levels of sewage into our rivers, lakes and seas.
“That is why this Government has announced immediate steps to put water companies under tough special measures and begin the work of cleaning up our waterways.
“The Water (Special Measures) Bill will strengthen regulation to reverse the tide on the unacceptable destruction of our waterways, ensuring water companies deliver for customers and the environment and attract private-sector investment to upgrade our crumbling infrastructure.
“Change will take time. The Government will outline further legislation to fundamentally transform our water industry and restore our rivers, lakes and seas to good health.”
Lib Dem environment spokesperson Tim Farrond said the findings were "truly shocking" (Alamy)
When the issue was last examined, it was found that sewage was dumped 25,630 times in 2021, meaning there has been a 36.5 per cent rise in the number of spills in the ensuing two years. There was also a nearly 40 per cent increase in the amount of sewage spilled.
The starkest increase was in Dartmoor, where the hours of sewage spills recorded had almost doubled from the 37,460 recorded in 2021.
The impact on towns in the parks can be dire. Residents of Staveley, a town home to one of the worst outfalls in the country, described sewage spills so bad that during heavy downpours manhole covers flood and leave residents wading through sewage water to leave their homes or visit shops on a regular basis.
Lib Dem environment spokesperson Tim Farron MP said: "These findings are truly shocking. National Parks must be protected from foul sewage dumping.
"Millions of people enjoy National Parks every year and expect them to be clean environments, yet instead, water companies are polluting them with sewage. The new government must clampdown on this and ensure National Parks are no longer subjected to this."
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