Thames Water: State of rivers 'only getting worse' as amount of sewage dumped in River Thames quadrupled last year

The amount of raw sewage dumped into the River Thames more than quadrupled last year according to latest figures. According to data from Thames Water, and analysed by London’s City Hall there were 6,590 hours of sewage spills in the last nine months of 2023 - up from 1,420 hours for the same period in 2022.

Figures from Thames Water’s storm discharge dashboard only started to be published in April 2022. According to the latest data, between 25 and 31 December last year, sewage was dumped 18 hours a day on average amid heavy rainfall.

The year 2022 was dry with droughts declared in summer and hosepipe bans brought in. However, 2023 was much wetter.

Despite this, London's mayor Sadiq Khan has written to the new Thames Water CEO, Chris Weston, urging the company to clean up rivers and tackle pollution discharges. He also criticised the government for “standing by” while more sewage flows into rivers around the country.

In a statement published on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, Mr Khan said: “London’s rivers are the arteries of our city. Frankly the current state of some of our rivers is appalling and only getting worse.

“Thames Water urgently need to up their game, and get a grip of the situation. At the same time, ministers are standing by and letting more and more dirty sewage flow into our rivers.”

Last year an official report by the Environment Agency revealed that Thames Water had the highest number of serious sewage pollution incidents in a decade in 2022, with 17 serious incidents recorded. The report criticised the decline as “simply unacceptable”.

Thames Water, which serves 15 million customers across London and the south-east of England, is aiming to raise £2.5 billion by 2030 to improve its leaky pipes and improve its finances. A Thames Water spokesman said: “We regard all discharges as unacceptable and are committed to reducing the need for them. We remain the only company to provide live alerts for all untreated discharges and this ‘near real-time’ data is available to customers as a map on our website and is also available through an open data platform for third parties, such as swimming and environmental groups to use.

“We have published plans to upgrade over 250 of our sewage treatment works and sewers to treat the high volumes of incoming sewage and reduce the need for overflows during wet weather. In addition, we have started the £100 million upgrade of Mogden sewage treatment works, which will increase capacity and reduce the number of storm discharges from the site, and we’re also spending £145 million upgrading Beckton sewage works.”