Shellfish and shit: How sewage is soiling towns like Whitstable
Arrive in Whitstable, saunter through the sights, stride down to the beach, sink into the freezing cold sea and shiver into the waves. “Euphoria” is what you will soon feel, CityAM is assured by local swimmer Ed Acteson. That’s after the blood-curdling pain subsides, obviously.
The Kent seaside town is a mere hour and 19 minutes train ride from St Pancras. As such both Londoners and locals profit from its seaside charm – chiefly deriving from pebble beaches and open coastline. World famous oysters, pastel coloured seafront houses, vintage shops, art galleries and a good old English castle: Whitstable is one of the most prized visitor destinations – and second home locations – the UK has to offer.
The constituency may boast the only Labour MP in Kent but it is not generally known for political activism – the local arts scene skews more towards beach scene watercolours than anti-government murals.
Yet with enough injustice, ordinary Brits will start to pick up placards, sign petitions and some will even go as far as writing a folk-rock protest song about the “heinous environmental crimes committed by Southern Water”, aptly titled “Swimming in it”.
A tale of sickness…
SOS Whitstable was formed in 2021 by a group of 10 local swimmers (including Acteson) appalled by reports of sewage being spilt by Southern Water directly into the English Channel. 2023 saw a 65 per cent yearly increase in the number of hours sewage was pumped into the sea near Whitstable – 1,070.
Acteson is straight with CityAM when asked: no, you won’t see sewage floating on the seatop. But wait a few days and you may well have contracted E. coli (the symptoms of which are rarely deadly but are still too sordid for this column to publicise).
Dangerous levels of the bacteria E.coli have been found at one of the area’s busiest beaches – with the amount of bacteria in the water rising up 12-fold within weeks last summer. Unsurprisingly reports of E. coli cases following a dip in Kent’s seas have rocketed in tandem.
…and stealth
Water companies (Southern Water is in charge of Whistable’s seas) have defended themselves by blaming other causes of E. coli being found in water – namely, seagulls. Noone takes that particular allegation seriously.
Legally, these companies can spill sewage in “exceptional circumstances” where they use a “storm overflow” permit to chuck waste water from the sewage system into rivers and seas in cases of high rainfall to prevent sewage backspilling into people’s homes.
Yet these permits are being abused, it was revealed last year – with very few repercussions from regulator the Environment Agency.
One slither of retribution was their tentative proffering of interactive sewage maps so that sewage-shy bathers would be able to check the waters for live sewage spillage pre-swim. But all firms but one failed to meet the self-imposed deadline of 2023 for publishing these maps. A Water UK spokesperson recently said companies were “on track” for the 2025 legally-binding deadline (well, you’d have hoped so) but did not pinpoint any target dates or explain the missed deadline.
Polluter must pay? Not if you’re a water company
The water companies’ failure has led to a bizarre situation where campaigners are doing the water firms’ work for them (that is, keeping track of sewage spills and publishing data to keep swimmers safe).
SOS Whitstable has led three public protests, the most recent bringing 3,000 people to a town of just 300,000 inhabitants. Their two petitions have drawn hundreds of thousands of signatures.
River Mole River Watch is one such smaller group, SOS Whitstable and Surfers Against Sewage are larger ones. Environment secretary Steve Barclay said in December sewage spills from storm overflows were “unacceptable” and a priority, but the stark reality is that the government hasn’t been able to fix the problem nor shown the chutzpah to undo it. They said “sorry” last summer, but the apology sank to the bottom of the sea faster than Clegg’s tuition fee climbdown back in 2012.
Fishermen are being forced out of business, because although they have invested in cleaning systems that mean their oysters are safe to eat, people are scared. A sewage-sodden reputation puts people off their seafood.
An “existential threat”
It’s not just wild swimmers that care. Whitstable’s oyster farming companies are struggling. The damage has affected three pillars of the community:
- public health as people become sick from swimming or eating foul shellfish
- the environment as local birdwatchers have found biodiversity is shrinking
- the local economy is sinking as punters book jaunts in friendly seaside towns where sewage is just a sordid joke, not a genuine health risk to a holiday dip or oyster-champagne supper
SOS Whitstable is conscious of its own role in building up sewage hysteria giving its hometown a reputation for soiled waters and shellfish. All this harms businesses and provides an “existential threat” to the town’s economy, according to the campaign group.
Fishermen are being forced out of business, because although they have invested in cleaning systems that mean their oysters are safe to eat, people are scared. A sewage-sodden reputation puts people off their seafood.
But SOS Whitstable maintains that local firms back their mission – “we’re frank in our view Southern Water should be liable for compensation to these businesses”, Acteson explains.
That might be nice. But it’s not the ethos that’s shined through water company policy up until now. Despite the “polluter must pay” ethos into its environmental policy being a decree enshrined in environmental law, this principle is being studiously ignored in sewage pollution with clean-up funds being clawed from customers.
With profit in mind, water companies should have been expanding sewage treatment plants over the last decades due to increased volume and ageing infrastructure, but were too stingy.
Freaky Britain strikes again
In 1989 during Thatcher’s third term, England and Wales became the only countries in the world to privatise their water systems. They are systems that have sorely failed. With profit in mind, water companies should have been expanding sewage treatment plants over the last decades due to increased volume and ageing infrastructure, but were too stingy.
Whilst there is some division amongst anti-sewage campaigners, most groups tend to gun for re-nationalisation as the ultimate solution. Research has tended to agree. The University of Greenwich found consumers in England were paying £2.3bn more every year for their water and sewerage bills than they would if the water companies had remained under state ownership.
This would prevent companies taking huge dividends (to the tune of £57bn since 89) or pushing the clean-up price tag onto the consumer – companies have pledged in full £10bn for the cleanup but it will be funded through higher bills. Joy. A state-run system would likely not prioritise profit in this way.
The public are largely on board: SOS Whitstable ran “one of the most signed petitions in UK history” arguing for water systems to be public once more. It got 300,000 signatures.
How to shift the shit
Across the (relatively clear) waters of the Channel, Paris is planning to clean up the Seine to make it swimmable for the Olympics this summer. The government over here couldn’t do that in London as the capital’s (rather filthier) river is owned by Thames Water.
But SOS Whitstable’s Ed Acteson is not totally disheartened. Although the most support has been from Jenny Jones of the Green Party, Acteson feels the 2024 election will force both parties to listen to impassioned local communities. Duffield has been supportive, he says. But he hopes Labour will make a firm commitment to resolving the situation once and for all.
So Acteson and his merry band of sewage-besmirchers at SOS Whitstable will continue to slam Southern Water and pals via X, host protests, track data and prevent the issue from being washed away willfully by water companies.
And they will still find euphoria in their cold water swims – as long as they’ve checked the most comprehensive sewage spill interactive map beforehand, updated by campaign group Surfers Against Sewage.