Almost a million hours worth of sewage discharges occurred across coastal constituencies last year, new figures have found.
Torridge and West Devon had the highest total hours of sewage discharges, with 57,494 hours.
The Labour Party analysed data from the Environment Agency (EA) which it says shows 141,777 sewage dumping events across 137 of a total of 139 coastal constituencies in England and Wales in 2022. It is the equivalent of an discharge once every three minutes and 45 seconds, adding up to a combined total of 980,999 hours, equivalent to more than 111 years.
Shadow environment secretary Jim McMahon said people who live by the coast “should be able to just enjoy the place where they live without having to worry about encountering filthy raw sewage”.
He accused the Conservatives of allowing communities to be treated as “open sewers”.
Labour said its figures are based on EA data and data compiled by Top of the Poops, a website which publishes sewage discharge data broken down by categories including constituency boundaries.
EA figures released last month show that last year across England sewage discharges fell by 19%, down to a total of 301,091 spills.
The drop was largely due to dry weather and not action taken by water companies, the EA said.
McMahon is bringing forward a Private Member’s Bill which his party claims would enact its plans to curb sewage discharges by 2030, and includes proposals to automatically fine sewage dumping and implement legally binding reduction targets.
Labour has previously said it would introduce a legally binding target to end 90% of sewage discharges by 2030 and stronger sanctions and fines for bosses and companies who fail to do so.
He added: “That the Tories have allowed villages, towns and cities across the country to be treated as open sewers shows that they have no respect for places where people live, work and holiday.
“Coastal communities should be able to just enjoy the place where they live without having to worry about encountering filthy raw sewage.
“The next Labour government will build a better Britain, ending the Tory sewage scandal by delivering mandatory monitoring on all sewage outlets, introducing automatic fines for discharges, setting ambitious targets for stopping systematic sewage dumping and ensuring that water bosses are held to account for negligence.”
It comes as campaigners accused the government of rehashing old policies and lacking ambition as the environment secretary announced her vision for tackling water pollution in England on Tuesday.
Thérèse Coffey said the NEW water plan would help to tackle “the scourge of sewage pollution once and for all”, but also warned that there would be no quick fix to clean up rivers and beaches.
But Charles Watson, the chairman of River Action UK, said the plan “largely appears to be a collection of recycled existing spending commitments and previously announced policies.”
The beach hit by most discharges was New Brighton, on the Wirral, in Merseyside, with 1,149 dumps which lasted 7,065 hours. This was followed by Allonby in Cumbria with 666 releases totalling 6,754 hours and Morecambe north, Lancashire with 238 dumps lasting 5,158 hours.
Greenpeace UK’s Political Campaigner, Megan Corton Scott, said: “This government has seen four Environment Secretaries, but none of them have stopped sewage being pumped into our waters.
“What’s happening to our coastlines is a direct consequence of a deregulation agenda that’s making Britain’s beaches unfit for bathing, with swimmers becoming sick up and down the country.
“Voters can make judgements about how this sewage crisis was created, but no political party can be a proper champion of decent water quality without ambitious targets for clean up, and proper funding and power for our regulators.”
A Defra spokesperson said: “This Government is the first to take such comprehensive action on storm overflows - and our new Plan for Water sets out the increased investment, tougher enforcement and tighter regulation to tackle this issue.
“We have introduced compulsory monitoring, set the strictest targets ever on water companies to reduce discharges and required them to deliver the largest infrastructure programme in their history.
“The Environment Secretary has demanded an action plan on every storm overflow from every company in England, prioritising those near bathing waters. We are also consulting to give regulators more powers to impose much larger penalties for polluters without needing to go to court.”
