Save Our Seas!
Inspirational speeches from rock-star turned clean water campaigner Fergal Sharkey and the Green Party peer Dame Jenny Jones condemned Southern Water’s failure to keep Thanet’s beaches and seas free of sewage.
At a well attended meeting in Ramsgate on 24th February, over 100 people heard the speakers denounce Southern Water and the UK’s other water companies for putting corporate greed and dividends before the needs of customers and communities.
The event, at The Modern Boulangerie, was hosted by Thanet Green Party councillors Mike Garner and Tricia Austin to reflect the growing anger towards Southern Water following repeated raw sewage discharges into the sea and interruptions to fresh water supplies.
Dame Jennie Jones
“Six Million Hours Dumping Sewage!”
The statistics are shocking. “Over the last two years,” said Sharkey “water companies have spent almost six million hours dumping sewage into the environment across England and Wales. Oversight has been almost non-existent.”
“All that needs to happen is the regulatory framework that we have is used to hold water companies to account. We need government to act.”
L-R Green councillor Mike Garner,Fergal Sharkey, Dame Jennie Jones, Green councillor Tricia Austin
“The Water Companies Are Being Let Off”
Jennie Jones added, “The water companies are being let off, they should not be giving hand-outs to senior staff and shareholders until there are improvements to infrastructure and those discharges are brought right down to a tiny level or stopped entirely.”
“The water companies call them storm outfalls but they are simply discharges at any time of the day or night.
“We have to make sure they are fined properly and that they have to be part of the clean ups.
“It is Green Party policy that that we should renationalise something so precious so it will not be in the hands of people making a profit.”
Both speakers said people across the country were now making their anger known and telling government, water companies and regulators that they would not stand for the pollution any longer.
But in January MPs, including South Thanet’s Tory MP Craig Mackinlay, voted in favour of The Draft Environmental Targets Regulations which sets legally binding targets to tackle water pollution but it does not take effect for 15 years! So for the water companies it will be dirty business as usual if they are not stopped so now is the time for action!
Thanet Green councillor Tricia Austin and Dame Jennie Jones
Green Party leader Mike Garner said: “It was great to see so many people there. Feargal Sharkey and Jenny Jones spoke with a lot of passion about the ongoing sewage issues created by Southern Water and energised all who were there to continue the fight to stop it.”
Get Involved
If you have had enough of Southern Water’s failures and want to get involved in the fight to keep Thanet’s sea and beaches clean and sewage free click HERE to go to our homepage where you can learn more about Thanet Green Party and what we stand for.
Click the link below to see the whole of the meeting on video