The two crews in Saturday’s traditional Oxford v Cambridge boat race were warned about dangerous levels of E coli in the Thames. Any celebrations, or worse a capsize, were to be avoided. Yet more rain in March disappearing down the capital’s drains has mixed with untreated sewage – human waste, sanitary products and wet wipes – in London’s ageing sewers to overflow as more untreated, poisonous gunge into the capital’s river. It was an all too visible metaphor for Britain’s decline.
For the same has been happening throughout Britain, whoever owns the system – privately owned, as in England, or publicly owned, as in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Our predecessors did not want to invest in expensive separate sewerage and drainage systems, but as the climate changes and our population grows we pay a heavy price. Last week, the Environment Agency disclosed that in 2023 discharges of untreated sewage into England’s rivers and seas by England’s water companies had more than doubled, with above average rainfall offered as the explanation. But the mounting protests in England are echoed in Scotland and Northern Ireland: do not swim in Lough Neagh, for example, or off the Antrim coast after heavy rain – you will swim in untreated sewage.
