Please help me to get untreated sewage out of the river Thames around Oxford

Did you know it’s normal business practice for your local water company to pour the untreated contents of your lavatory into your local river?

Shocking, I know, but the most recent stats say that, across the country, this happened for 3.1 million hours in 2020. That’s 400,000 separate events .

50,000 hours of that went into the river Thames upstream of Oxford, where I live. Here's what that looks like:

There are two reasons for this behaviour. First, when the water companies were privatised in 1989 they were incentivised to deliver shareholder profit over the infrastructure investments needed to serve our growing population. They became financial services businesses rather than utility companies.

Today, more than half of sewage works in the upper Thames don't have sufficient capacity, leading to raw sewage leaks (Daily Telegraph, 21st January 2022 ).

Second, their regulator the Environment Agency has been emasculated by reduced budgets (here's an article on that ) and weak leadership. The occasional fines they hand out are accounted for by the water companies as a cost of doing business.

In recent years people have become more aware of sewage dumping. This was particularly so during lockdown when river swimming grew even more popular.

In response to all this, a group of people around Oxford have applied to DEFRA to get ‘Designated Bathing Water’ status for our patch of the river Thames. There are over 600 beaches with this status around the UK, but only one other river, the Wharf at Ilkley in Yorkshire.?

What's Designated Bathing Water status?

This status means that tests will be carried out at a particular site every week between May and September and the council must provide information about water quality and pollution sources. It also puts pressure?on Thames Water to stop dumping sewage locally.?It's not going to solve all the problems overnight, and we've got lots of other activities going on as well. But it will help and I’m thrilled to tell you we’ve got through the first round of our application.?

We’ve worked closely with Thames Water to get this far and they’re keen to support us: it’ll help them to push through the investment decisions they need to make improvements.

By the way, I don’t swim in the Thames. But I’ve got lots of friends who do, some of whom rely on it for their mental health. And my children swim in and canoe on the river.

I’m a dog owner and a fisherman. Oh and I've rowed the length of the Thames in a Victorian camping skiff a few times, but that's another story. I’ve fished and explored many parts of the Thames and its beautifully named tributaries like the Cherwell, the Windrush and the Evenlode. I can tell you: they often smell foul and often appear to be dead. I think designating a small area for swimming near Oxford is a brilliant idea and it'll improve the river for all the people who love it, and the species that depend on it. It’s difficult for a fish to keep its mouth shut when it’s swimming .

I need your help

We need as many people as possible to respond to the national consultation, which closes on Wednesday 2nd March.

It doesn’t matter where you live, it just matters that you don’t want to swim in or canoe/row/sail/paddleboard through, or walk your dog past the contents of your neighbourhood’s toilets.?

Please, please:

1. Fill in the consultation here . This should only take you 5 minutes. Here are some tips to help you respond .
2. Share the consultation with a friend, a family member, a club, organisation or network you are part of. It's a national consultation - anyone in the country can respond and it's all to the good of the accelerating national effort to clean up our river.

Thank you