Sewage activists slam Therese Coffey as she says UK ‘should be proud’ of its environment success

Sewage campaigners have slammed Therese Coffey after she said in a speech “we should be proud” of what the UK has “delivered” to better the environment in the last six months.

Speaking at the Summer Stakeholder Reception on Wednesday (19 July), the Environment Secretary discussed delivering the goals of the 25 Year Environment Plan and what the UK has already achieved.

She said the government has "enhanced over ten thousand miles of rivers in the last seven years” and there is “less cadmium and mercury in the water environment” with phosphorus down 80% and ammonia by 85% in rivers “compared to 1990 when water companies were privatised.”

Coffey added that the “biggest environmental infrastructure investment from the water sector” ever will also help the government to “target action for protected nature sites” under its new Plan for Water “designed to make polluters pay to sort out their mess.”

However, Henley Mermaids, a group of five women who are longstanding campaigners against river pollution, told NationalWorld that the government “has had 13 years to improve our rivers” but instead “our precious inland waterways have deteriorated to the point of being open sewers for privatised water monopolies.”

The group said: “Last year, one of the driest years on record, water companies dumped raw sewage into our rivers for 1.75 million hours.”

The group added that many government commitments to help restore rivers have been “delayed or dropped” including “yet another consultation on banning wet wipes” which “has disappeared” and the Environment Act that “failed to include any hard targets on reducing and ultimately eliminating sewage discharges.”

In 2021 the government carried out a consultation over banning wet wipes that contained plastics with 96% supporting the proposed ban. It was also first proposed under Theresa May’s government back in 2018 with the former Prime Minister pledging to eradicate all “avoidable plastic waste” by 2042.

Henley Mermaids also pointed to the lack of applications for bathing water status being accepted in the UK as there has been only two accepted out of 21 put forward.

The group said communities that are trying to clean up their local rivers “are being stymied” and this year the government has “moved the goalposts to make it even harder to achieve designation.”

According to new data from the Liberal Democrats, most applications for bathing water status to clean up rivers and coastal waters in England have been rejected by the government in the last 14 months.

Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat environment spokesperson, said: “The Conservative government’s attempt to protect bathing water is nothing less than a cruel joke. Ministers are rejecting almost every application made by local communities and swimming groups.”

Henley Mermaids said that the UK needs to “leave our natural world in a better state than we found it” and the Coffey “can’t claim to have achieved that at all."

The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) told the Guardian that when it selects sites it considers “how many people bathe there, if the site has suitable infrastructure and facilities, such as toilets, and if measures are being taken to promote bathing at those waters.”

It added: “All applications are assessed against these factors and applications that do not meet the essential criteria will not proceed to national consultation.”

Richard Benwell, Chief Executive of Wildlife and Countryside Link, said: “There’s no doubt that Defra have delivered some good nature-recovery projects, but the scale of nature losses still outpaces recovery.

“That’s the gap that needs to be filled if government is to have any hope of living up to its promise of halting nature’s decline by the end of the decade.”

Coffey’s speech comes after a government watchdog committee has warned England is meeting less than half of its annual tree-planting target, raising concerns about how it will meet its woodland recovery goals.

While sewage campaigners’ anger over the amount of raw waste being poured into UK rivers continues to mount.

Last week 80% of beaches in Cornwall were issued raw sewage alerts following heavy rain.