There are calls for Northumbrian Water to be “completely reformed from top to bottom” amid outrage over raw sewage being dumped into the North East’s waters.
The company was among those which issued an apology in mid-May for acting too slowly on spills, but has warned that the public’s water bills will increase in order to pay for a £1.7bn plan to tackle the problem. There has been mounting anger over rivers and seas being contaminated by untreated sewage, with recent figures from campaign group Surfers Against Sewage showing that there were 963 hours worth of discharges into bathing waters across the Northumbrian Water area in 2022.
Liberal Democrats in Newcastle are the latest to call on the water firm, which supplies a large area from Berwick down to Middlesbrough, to undergo radical changes. Mark Ridyard, the party’s Parliamentary candidate in the Newcastle East constituency, said: “This announcement is too little too late after years of putting public health at risk and large-scale environmental damage, which has previously been arrogantly dismissed by the water industry.
