‘Keep out of the water – it might be toxic’. That’s the official advice about two south London rivers this week, while utility companies continue to pollute our waterways, reports PAUL LUSHION, environment correspondent
Toxic waters: Carshalton Ponds this week, suffering from algae blooms or Beddington discharge
Steve Reed OBE, in his new role as Environment Secretary, has a tough task ahead of him in sorting out polluting water companies, with two serious episodes of pollution on his own constituency doorstep this week affecting the River Wandle and Beverley Brook.
The Wandle is a globally rare chalk stream, but concerned locals have this week reported how the water in Carshalton Ponds has turned a cloudy green colour.
It is possible that this is due to the warm weather and algal bloom, which the Environment Agency warns, “Contact with blue-green algal blooms should be avoided as they can be toxic and can lead to a variety of symptoms including vomiting and diarrhoea.” Nice.
More likely, it is another episode of Thames Water choosing for the cheap option and dumping sewage into the Wandle from its Beddington sewage treatment works.
Thames Water has said that it wants to be able to continue to dump sewage into the Wandle until 2035.
Polluters: Some of the casualties of a sewage spill two years ago. Thames Water has been killing fish in the Wandle for more than a decade
The River Wandle rises in South Croydon, flowing north-west, mostly underground through Waddon, emerging above ground at Waddon Ponds and Wandle Park, before continuing its course to Carshalton, through Merton and on to the Thames.
Chalk streams are exceedingly rare, with only around 200 in the whole world. Of these, 85% are found in southern England, and there are just two of those flowing through London. The River Wandle is one of those.
Yet thanks to Thames Water, the Wandle’s water quality is seemingly constantly degraded with untreated sewage being released.
Thames Water claims that they can’t afford to undertake vital infrastructure upgrades to protect the Wandle for 12 years. At a meeting last December, Thames Water admitted that, beyond work on the Thames Tideway tunnel, no work has been carried out on the Wandle since 2018.
According to the South East Rivers Trust, there were 13 separate incidents on the River Wandle in the 12 months to December 2023, leading to over 25 hours of discharge.
“The government must get its act together and hold the water companies to account for their failure to protect our local river,” is the view of Bobby Dean, now the LibDem MP for Carshalton and Wallington, who calls the mistreatment of the precious Wandle “heartbreaking”.
Thames Water has in the past promised to invest £611million over a 25-year period around new works at Beddington.
Promises, promises: Steve Reed has threatened to get tough with water companies. Sort of
This week another south London waterway has been undermined by pollution, with wardens who look after Wimbledon Common warning the public to keep out of the Beverley Brook because of a potentially dangerously toxic sewage leak.
“Sewage has entered Beverley Brook on Wimbledon Common,” they warned, adding that Richmond Park and Barnes Common are also affected. Royal Parks issued a similar warning.
The stench of the sewage leak can be traced back, as ever, to Thames Water, who say that they are working to repair a burst mains pipe and are “using tankers to ensure no further discharge”.
A Twitter post by Wimbledon and Putney Commons advised that “people and dogs should keep out of the brook, from Wimbledon Common and downstream”.
A Royal Parks spokesperson said it was made aware Thames Water “suffered a sewage leak in the Kingston Hill area” and “unfortunately, some of this leakage has reached the Beverley Brook, upstream of Richmond Park through the surface water drainage network.
“Thames Water has attended the site to resolve the situation, and the Environment Agency has been made aware.
“Any contamination will flow through the brook in due course, however we are closely monitoring the situation.
“For health and safety reasons, we advise people and dogs to keep out of the water.”
Another LibDem MP, Sarah Olney, represents the Richmond Park constituency. “Thames Water has polluted our rivers and streams for years,” she said yesterday.
“After decades of under-investment, their network is coming apart at the seams and it’s our communities that are suffering.
“Beverley Brook is a haven for wildlife in south-west London but, with every new sewage spill, we’re at risk of losing this special corner of London.
“Labour need to urgently take Thames Water into special administration, clean up our rivers, and start putting communities first.”
Of course, there is a direct solution to dealing with recalcitrant, repeat-offending, multi-nationals who squeeze every last drop of profit from Britain’s utilities in order to pay out billions in dividends to their shareholders: re-nationalise them.
But that’s not something right-wing Reed, the MP for Streatham and Croydon North, is willing to do.
Labour’s environment minister, with his smart new pair of Hunter boots, is simply threatening more fines for the top executives at failing companies such as Thames Water – fines which ultimately will just be passed on to consumers, the poor mugs who have been paying rising bills for poor levels of service, while the companies low-levels of investment see them continue to dump tons of sewage into our streams, rivers, lakes and coastlines every hour.
“We will strengthen regulation, crack down on water companies and begin the work of cleaning up Britain’s rivers, lakes and seas,” said a spokesperson for DEFRA, the environment ministry that has sat by and watched this all happening for decades.
Read more: Complacent Thames Water won’t improve Wandle for 12 years
Read more: #TheLabourFiles: MP Reed, Evans and the Croydon connection
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
I’m sure that Steve Reed will keep the LibDems happy by sending Thames Water a strongly worded letter. If Thames Water carry on trashing our rivers then he might send them an even angrier letter.
Meanwhile the shareholders and bosses at Thames Water will still pay themselves millions of our money and claim that they need to raise our bills to fix the problem.
Privatisation of Water has clearly failed. These companies have failed to do the job we have been already been paying them to do. So we should be demanding a refund from bosses and shareholders and taking the whole operation back into public hands.
That’s what a government that cared about public services and our environment would do