We have a government that doesn't care and a country that is crumbling. Water company bosses should already be in jail.

The turds on the benches gave us turds on the beaches.

Basically water companies are not processing sewage because the Tory government has given them a free pass to do this.

The water industry should never have been privatised, it should now be taken back into public ownership with no compensation to shareholders as they’ve made enough money out of the public. To demand that the public pay higher bills for their failures is breathtaking.

Imagine if the bosses were given prison time rather than bonuses. It would be resolved very quickly

Since privatisation not one new reservoir has been built and the population has grown by 10 million since then

Since privatization in the 80's the UK's water companies have given £72 billion to shareholders (no, really. Look it up) while investing almost nothing. How is this not criminal?

If the companies cannot stop sewage being discharged into rivers and seas then the water companies should be nationalised without compensation.

We were told that privatisation of the water companies would bring in private investment that would allow for the replacement of our old sewer system. What actually happened was that the private companies found they could maximise their profits by just dumping raw sewage into the rivers and now the companies are saying to fix things they will need to make huge increases in their prices!

Water assets have been outsourced by the thacher tory policy. Outsourcing is the way to pocket profits instead of investing in the service for the country. Railways privitised we now have the most expensive travel in europe It's cheeper to fly to spain for a week and pay for private dentistry there. NHS now being sold off quietly , soon if you want treatment you pay or die.

Remember that those are 3.6 million hours of raw sewage that we have all paid the privatised water companies to treat and someone has just trousered the cash instead

I'm willing to bet, if you looked in the fridges of all these water company CEOs and benefactors you'd find bottled water, and a swimming pool in the back garden.

I am an ex commercial fisherman from Cornwall, even back in the 90's being miles off shore hauling nets and having to remove sanitary towels from the nets. I bet it's worse than ever now.

40% Price increase for Thames Water customers in the South East! "That is the price customers have to pay for the investment in our infrastructure that's needed," said Boss Chris Weston. No mention of the huge amounts of money paid in premiums to shareholders over the years? Hope that the Tory blue southeast are happy to see the chickens coming home to roost.

Lol.. that is what I thought... There not enough hours. Thanks for the clarification . There is NO respect for the planet we live on.

The "invisible hand" of the market does not apply to monopolies.

Surfer's against sewage have been saying this for year's!!! since 1990 !

When water was privatised the companies immediately borrowed £billions...not to improve infrastructure, but to gift money to their shareholders... The repayments of these loans was immediately put onto our water bills.

Are they actually treating ANY sewage?

I wish Thatcher was alive to see all of this, not because I think she could do anything about it, but because I would love to see the look on her face as the scales fall from her eyes as she sees all of these amazing privitization initiatives she pushed on us systematically fail in real time

Thanks Thatcher 👍

Why are shareholder benefiting from the failure of the water companies top perform their normal duties? What kind of a contract do they have that allows profit to the company while failing to do what they are supposed to do? Who on earth agreed this contract.

Ah, the joys of privatisation. In order to actually do their job correctly, the water companies want to massively increase their prices. Of course they have to - otherwise they'll not have 'record breaking' profits for shareholders.

It wouldnt be off the front pages if it were a Labour Government letting this happen.

The government do not want to effect water company profits.

All the money given in dividends but not spent on updating the network and infrastructure.

Polluting the rivers & then paying the fines is cheaper than disposing and treating the waste. Reverse that system and maybe it won’t happen… as much.

Because water company shareholders would rather have billions in dividends, than spend billions in investment to prevent sewage being dumped into our rivers. Duh.

Those governing this country should be imprisoned for making every one else's quality of life to be diminished.

It's utterly disgraceful. We have an app that shows whether it's safe to swim in the sea each day. Disgraceful.

Sewage discharge is largely an invisible issue to most. Out of sight, out of mind 🤔

Privatise the profit, nationalise the debt. Twas always the Tory way.

Fine them £5000 an hour

The chief executive officer of the Themes Water company said to the BBC that water bills will have to go up by 40% by 2030 to fund essential improvements to infrastructure. Themes water shareholders and management took the money that should have been invested in the infrastructure of Themes Water and also increased the company debt up to £18 billion while paying themselves massive dividends. The weak water regulator and the Tory government allowed the mainly foreign owners to do this. Now Themes Water want the public to pay again to fix the massive problems with the old leaking infrastructure at Themes water, service and pay off the £18 billion of debt that was loaded on to the company by its mainly foreign owners.

Why is sewage discharge statistics given in hours,not volume.

The best part of it all is that there’s no consequences for anyone who’s responsible for this, the people who have to deal with the consequences are the same people who pay the bills

Shareholders enjoy making money from this😢😢

Privatisation of water leads inexorably to an effluent society.

All the privatised companies bother about is paying shareholder. Now these same companies are saying is the consumers will have to pay for the modernisation with higher bills.

That's a lot of sewage. 1% of that was probably from Coffey

Make sewage whilst the sun shines…then flush into rivers when it rains.

Billing for sewage treatment and not providing it is clearly obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception. This is a criminal offence.

The French are now calling us the "Isle De Merde", embarrassing

The water companies obviously save a load of money by doing this. And no doubt the bosses get huge bonuses for increased profits.

Never forget, Scottish Water is not privatised !!! Have a look at their performance, and the lowest charges in the UK 🙂

Water plants and sewage companies should never be private companies and NEVER be paying dividends to shareholders they should be owned by the government and managed like a private company that focuses on sustainability, smart self-investment, financial stability and smooth streamlined processes

A shocking state of affairs. Privatisation, private equity firms all profit, all greed. It’s gonna change soon

Thames Shareholders refuse to spend 500 Million to help cleanup, Nationolise water then... Or put bills up by 250Mil and force Thames to pay the other 250, fair int it?

People should do what I did. I rang up my water company and said "you won't fix leaks and you continue to pump raw sewage into water course and the sea and you keep hiking my bills whilst providing me nothing for that price hike." I now pay only £5/month and that amount will never go up.

They were given a huge price rise to pay for this, not long after privatisation. That's never been cut back again. How many bites does this monopoly want?

I'm going to stay away from seasides and beaches altogether. This is disgusting 🤢

So on average each of the 25 water companies pumps sewage into 16 rivers constantly for a whole year...

The government would not want to upset the shareholders, the price of privatisation of utilities

The bigger problem is the quality of the water we drink. Is it governed by the same water company's ? Before privatisation, local authorities used to be responsible for regular testing of the water that comes from our taps. It could be that we are being poisoned by these same water companies. Does anyone know ?

Because they have never improved the system in line with the increase in population,dare I say just to keep shareholders happy,and now we are going to have to pay to improve it!🤔🤷🏼‍♂️🤬!

They have built up huge debts, refinanced and paid dividends and bonuses so that they cannot easily be renationalised and completely in self interest

Fergal Sharkey has been trying to bring awareness to the state of our water ways for years! It’s old news James.

They will do something about it when we have to close the Cornish beaches in the summer holidays

I’m an American with a soft spot for Britain, as it is the old country to both sides of my family. But Britain is looking increasingly like a third world country because of the polluted water, widespread poverty, a broken NHS, a failing education system, it goes on and on. Britain needs a change of government, and the public utilities should never have been privatized. I still believe in the UK but I hope the British people truly take back control from the clowns who wrecked the country.

3.6 million hours is equal to just under 411 hours of sewage being pumped out per actual hour of time in the year

So that's 411 points in the country pumping sewage continuously for the whole year. Just to give an idea of quantity.

Corruption takes *many* forms ... This is *one* of them.

Third world country!

They are pumping money to shareholders and upping the bills

It's been quietly allowed and condoned because it's capitalism and privatisation, so it can't be seen to be an abject failure. Ditto railways. NHS enroute.

Standard exchange with this govt: "Why is (insert problem area) in such a poor state and failing?" "We have invested (insert meaningless large sum of money) in this area, more than any govt." Why don't we just callenge this more?

The truth is, and I cannot stress this enough, the current government and in particular Rishi Sunak do not give a single hoot about environmental issues.

The country is failing yet rich enterprise is struggling to increase profits so they resort to things like this. Greed.

Why are our water bills so high and they dont treat the sewage we pay for but they pollute our waters. Where is the goverment oversight. Its disgusting.

Eating fish has always been at your own risk, especially from local waterways 🤮

The reason infrastructure is allowed to collapse in the west due to shareholder enrichment is because the shareholders who benefit are too old/rich to experience the consequences of their decisions. 🕊

Sue them all into oblivion... The government is SO pathetically weak companies laugh at our rules and regulations knowing nothing other than a tiny fine will come their way. A fine so small that it's financially motiviating to take it over doing the job properly.

I mean they're privatized, right? Giving them full incentive to make as much money as possible, and so cut corners. Privatizing UK utilities and basic services what a huge mistake... Look at our trains...

Is that a Brexit benefit?

A crime against nature 🤬

Could it be the same reason that sewage is being allowed to cross the Channel on a daily basis and wash up on the shores of the UK?

Why is the bank that is the majority owner not liable for damages?

I'll pass on the local seafood, thanks 😢. 🤢

The government will do nothing, how many of the MPs have shares in these companies and need their dividends. Thanes water plans to increase water rates for customers by 40% to pay for sorting this out, but shareholders will keep getting their dividends, sorted Tory style.

The Tory party and its client media ensures the public's attention and outrage is focused solely on foreigners in small boats and flights to Rwanda. As such other any other issues such as sewage barely registers on the radar.

i think most of it pours out of the Prime Ministers mouth

They love it, they just don't care just as long as it maximises their profits and enables them to draw down dividends from their share holdings.

I think the 70% of us planning to not vote Tory at the next election are already doing something about this. But if Just-Stop or Green Peace can get their hands on a slurry tanker and have it discharge in front of No10 gates I'm all in favour.

Soon the uk will have a brown water ring around it

I would say it is a Criminal act to release Raw Sewage into our river's and Sea's.

To make things worse the Tory's verbal diarrhoea will add to these millions of hours.

Why do water companies pump raw sewage into our rivers and seas? simple answer IT COSTS MONEY TO TREAT IT and that money if spent reduces the profits of the water companies and with it the bonuses of the senior executives of those companies. The government passed legislation soon after we left the EU to allow them to do this because if we had still been in the EU they would have been stopped from doing it. If we had a competent government, first they wouldn't have allowed them to do it in the first place but there is a very simple solution, for each day that a water company discharges raw sewage into our rivers and seas there will be a 0.5% windfall tax on their profits. The money to be used to help clean up the mess they have created. Privatise the water companies and the service will improve and the cost will come down the Tories told us. The reality the service is much worse than it was and it costs more for that poor service. But we get a bonus as well we get rivers and seas that are unsafe to use because they are filling up with raw sewage just so the water companies can make even more money. The Victorians built a sewage system in the UK to prevent serious diseases and it looks like the Tories in only a few decades are going about destroying that. I wonder who the Tories and corrupt right wing media will blame if there is now a major cholera outbreak in this country?

Logically it should, but a few things I believe are the reasons why it is not in the forefront of people's minds: 1) Not talked about enough, simply brushed under the carpet. 2) People not actively looking for the information. 3) That it hasn't affected them personally so they don't think about it. It's a disgrace, core infrastructure should never have been sold off to the highest bidder.

These people need prison time now

What really brought it home to me was a story about a phone call from the international space station from a Japanese astronaut who said that she was so sad for us here in the UK because she could actually see the islands completely surrounded by a brown ring in the sea.

Why would it stop? the Tories are in charge. Of course they haven't done anything.

14 years of Tory vandalism and privatised gouging have produced so many huge failures in every service we rely on that people find it almost impossible to isolate one to be angry about. Also being angry is tiring when you're constantly skimping and scraping to make ends meet in your daily existance.

How can Southern Water be fined £300,000 for negligence but no single person is held accountable (imprisoned)?

Hey now James, it wasn't just into the rivers and seas, a considerable amount also found its way into the government.

Because those in government only care about their own interests, they view the majority as serfs to be exploited like shooting fish in a barrel and this is partly achieved by convincing the fish that the their difficulties are caused by the other fish not those exploiting them.

New housing plays a alarmingly large part in this issue. I was speaking to a civil engineering friend(we went to school together) who works for the water board and he was saying that he doesn't like to tell strangers where he works because he thinks his occupation has been demonized. I asked why he thinks he deserves a break and he told me that the water board can't refuse service to the new housing estates. Also that often councils rely on new housing to increase their income and that's how they stay afloat! So if plans for 200 new homes are being proposed in an area that has no spare capacity and it will take several years and lot of investment to increase the capacity they are still given planning permission and these building company that get rich of these homes in most case contribute zero to the cost of upgrading the infrastructure needed to supply these homes!

There are two points to make about the privatisation of energy, water, gas, and electricity that highlight how broken the current system is. FIrst, privatisation has been a gravy train for industry executives and shareholders at the expense of the necessary investment in infrastructure and the household bills of customers. Second, and more fundamentally, privatisation has seen what are essential national security assets pass into the hands of foreign owners. This is not only wrong, it is potentially dangerous for this country's future.

3.6million hours. If one company had been pumping raw sewage since 1614, the time of James I, and the ‘Crisis of Parliament’. How fitting.

Nothing happened to me that made me realise what a national tragedy this is...i realised this from paying attention to the news, ive been highly aware of this and deeply disturbed by it for YEARS...what i cant understand is why nothing ever changes and it just keeps being allowed...last summer when i cut my fingers on the beach and people around me told me to rinse them in the sea to clean them, suggesting the salt water would help heal them...i felt like i was surrounded by complete imbeciles...people genuinely believe this, even though literally days before there had been an announcement on the news warning people to stay out of the water in that area due to high sewage concentrations...people either dont listen or they dont care...i am constantly highly concerned about this... what i can't understsnd is why other people are not!!!...

The tories have missed a trick. The NHS waiting list is now so large that it "needs proper management" - an ideal opportunity to put money in the pockets of their cronies.