Get all your news in one place.

100’s of premium titles.
One app.

Start reading

Get all your news in one place.

100’s of premium titles. One news app.

Start reading

The Latest Breaking News from Surfers Against Sewage

Fed-up swimmers take on the Thames in fight against water pollution and tell lawmakers it's a "national scandal"

Eight athletes took part in the mammoth swim in support of a Surfers Against Sewage campaign to clean up British rivers

Advnture

Voices: ‘A system set up to fail?’ Readers say Ofwat should go – but can’t agree on whether water should be nationalised

YOUR VIEWS: Readers overwhelmingly support scrapping the regulator, but remain deeply divided over whether fixing the water industry means reforming regulation or returning it to public ownership

The Independent UK

Voices: The Cunliffe report on our failing water industry will make a splash

COMMENT: There is much to recommend in Sir Jon Cunliffe’s 88-point plan, says Sean O’Grady – not least that it paves the way for the utility to be brought back into public hands

The Independent UK

From analysis to the latest developments in health,
read the most diverse news in one place.

Thousands meet with MPs in Westminster for mass lobby on climate action

Campaigners, school children and grandparents were among those calling for MPs to give the crisis the ‘precedence it needs’.

The Independent UK

Interim water review ‘not the finishing line’ to fix failures, campaigners warn

The independent commission said the water sector in England and Wales needs a ‘fundamental reset’ as it published the interim report on Tuesday.

Evening Standard

What is the UK's sewage scandal?

What drove thousands to a paddling protest this weekend? And could your trip to the local lido be cut short by spilled sewage?

Evening Standard

Thousands turn out for paddle out protests over ‘sewage scandal’

People take to beaches, rivers and lakes to call for reform of water industry

The Independent UK

Read news from The Economist, FT, and more,
with one subscription

‘My husband went surfing and had to take three days off work’ - Over half of Britons fear swimming in UK waters will make them sick

Sewage was discharged over half a million times into UK waters in 2024, for around 4.7 million hours

The Independent UK

Warning UK rivers are ‘toxic chemical soup’ as all now plagued by sewage

Sewage spilled into our rivers 513,234 times last year for more than 4 million hours

The Independent UK

‘I spent five days in hospital’: Surge in swimmers falling ill from polluted UK waters

Diseases such as dysentry and Weil’s disease have led to swimmers and surfers becoming seriously unwell

The Independent UK

Water companies’ pollution incidents in England increased by 30% in 2024

The sector, which had been set a target to reduce spillages by 40%, needs ‘radical reform’, campaigners say

The Guardian - UK

‘I needed heart surgery after swimming in polluted water’: Health warning as sewage spills reach decade-high

As a result of sewage pollution, 331 people have seen a doctor with chest infections and gastroenteritis and some were hospitalised

The Independent UK

Water pollution in England at 10-year high, campaigners warn

Firms were collectively set a target of a 40% reduction in pollution incidents but instead recorded a 30% increase, Surfers Against Sewage said

Evening Standard

Water pollution across UK surged by nearly a third and highest in decade

Only a third of survey respondents believe their supplier will take the necessary steps to address water pollution

The Independent UK

Get all your
news in one place.

100’s of premium titles.
One news app.

Evening Standard

More than 68,000 sewage spills across Britain so far this year, say campaigners

Surfers Against Sewage have launched a new data hub with real-time information on sewage overflows.

Evening Standard

Anger over water bills hike which campaigners say will not solve sewage crisis

Clean water campaigners describe settlement for water companies as a ‘travesty’ and ‘nightmare before Christmas’ for customers.

The Guardian - UK

The best Christmas gifts for swimmers in the UK, from swim socks to snorkels

Here’s what everyone from top-level coaches to year-round ocean-dippers told us they’d love to unwrap on Christmas Day

The Guardian - UK

Revealed: the ‘catastrophic scale’ of sewage spills in England and Wales

Water companies have logged five sewage spills a day, every day, for a decade, analysis by the Observer shows

Get all your
news in one place.

100’s of premium titles.
One news app.

The Independent UK

Thousands gather across UK to demand clean rivers, beaches and lakes

Protesters call for an end to sewage discharges into all bathing and high-priority nature sites by 2030

The Guardian - UK

‘Clean water is a basic right’: protesters against sewage in seas and rivers gather across the UK

Surfers and families vent their frustration with water companies after more news of poisoned drinking water and polluted lakes

The Guardian - UK

Surfing was my life – then Britain’s filthy water left me with an incurable illness

The disease left me debilitated and jobless. What will it take for the water companies to clean up their act, asks surfer Reuben Santer

The Independent UK

Untreated sewage dumped into UK waters ‘1,000 times every day for year’ damning report says

Public has raised concerns about number of sewage discharges across the UK, particularly at beaches and swimming spots

The Guardian - UK

Most inland bathing spots in England have unsafe pollution levels, report finds

Surfers Against Sewage finds 60% of representative sample of popular locations are unsafe for swimming

The Guardian - UK

‘My daughter started to run a fever’: Britain’s swimmers on how sewage changed their summer

With pollution at high levels and growing worse, some keen swimmers have stopped going in the sea. Many have felt the impact on their mental health – not to mention the pain and discomfort of E coli

The Guardian - UK

‘There are more important things than profit’: Giles Bristow of Surfers Against Sewage on the shocking state of our seas

Our seas and rivers have never been in a worse state after years of neglect by the water companies. Now, we routinely check the sewage app alongside the weather. Meet the new CEO of Surfers Against Sewage who plans to turn the tide

1 2 3

People

From analysis to the latest developments in health,
read the most diverse news in one place.

Organisations

the Environment Agency

Surfers Against Sewage

the Independent Water Commission

11 stories

Yulex

10 stories

Read news from The Economist, FT, and more,
with one subscription

Topics

Places

Fourteen days free

Download the app

One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.