The Liberal Democrats pressed the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan to use powers available to him to help tackle the problem of sewage dumping in London’s rivers.
Last year the Environment Agency revealed that a total of 31 of London waterways saw 1,809 combined overflow discharges resulting in raw sewage being pumped into London’s rivers and streams for over 7,000 hours.
An FOI by the Lib Dems to the Environment Agency last year revealed that it took action over pollution in London rivers on only eight occasions between 2017 and 2021 and just two incidents resulted in prosecutions.
Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan pledged in July 2020 to reduce water pollution incidents by 30 per cent by 2025.
While recognising most the powers and failure to tackle this problem lie with the UK Conservative Government, the Liberal Democrats have pointed out the Mayor could be tacking steps within his powers to help solve the problem and shouldn’t have set himself this target if he didn’t think he had the resources or powers to deliver on it.
The Lib Dems also highlighted that in many cities of a similar size to London, metropolitan authorities have the power devolved to them to both take greater action on sewage incidents and to fine non-compliant water companies stating that the Mayor should be advocating for these powers.
Commenting Liberal Democrat London Assembly Member & Environment Spokesperson Hina Bokhari AM said:
“It is clear from the sheer scale of raw sewage entering London’s waters that the UK Conservative Government has utterly failed to get to grips with this problem. Sewage dumping is endangering human health, our wildlife and our tourism industry across London and the whole country.
“However, in London the Mayor is not without power himself. The Mayor set himself a target of reducing pollution incidents by 30% by 2025, yet when I questioned him today he wasn’t able to say specifically how he planned to reduce water pollution incidents or the progress he had made.
“If the Mayor doesn’t believe he has either the powers or resources to tackle the issue he shouldn’t set these targets.
“One way in which the Mayor could tackle sewage dumping in London would be to expand plans to increase urban foliage across London, which would reduce surface water run-off, the main reason our sewer systems overflow into our rivers during periods of heavy rain.
“It was also worrying that despite saying he did not have all the powers needed to tackle sewage dumping in London, Sadiq Khan refused to commit to asking the Government for more powers over the issue, something other major cities around the world do have.
“The Liberal Democrats will keep pushing both the UK Conservative Government and Labour Mayor to do all that is possible to end the scourge of sewage dumping in London’s waterways.”
