Environmental campaigners have written to the Mayor of London urging him to create a dedicated Sewer Connections Action Team (SCAT) to tackle river pollution.
Campaign to Protect Rural England London (CPRE), a charity campaigning to protect green spaces, criticised Sadiq Khan’s solutions to river pollution.
It said the long-awaited, £4.5billion Thames Tideway or ‘Super Sewer’, a 25-kilometre sewage tunnel under the Thames designed to intercept London sewage spills, will only ever partially solve the problem, as misconnected pipes enable sewage to evade treatment and directly enter London’s waterways.
Head of campaigns Alice Roberts said: “We have a mounting sewage crisis.
“This is why we are calling for the formation of a central team that can work on behalf of all London boroughs.
“Doing so will offer a more efficient system that can actually deliver on enforcement and eliminate the flow of sewer into local water systems.”
CPRE said a SCAT team would work on behalf of London boroughs on a consultancy basis, to establish an system and deliver enforcement in cases where rectifying misconnections is a borough’s responsibility.
They also said the mayor should provide start-up funding and costs should be recovered via legal action.
A spokesperson for the Mayor of London said: “For far too long London’s rivers have been neglected and damaged by sewage pollution.
“The Mayor is committed to cleaning up and protecting London’s waterways and is working with partners and local councils to address the issue of misconnected pipes, to make our rivers something that every Londoner can be proud of as we continue to build a greener, fairer London for everyone.”
The charity said all 41 rivers in the capital are polluted, with a third of its London’s sewage network unmapped.
It added local councils should require property owners to make necessary repairs to address misconnections, but that in many cases these remain unresolved, enabling sewage spills into rivers via rainwater drains.
The charity called on Thames Water to rectify misconnections for which it felt the company was responsible, too.
It stated Thames Water needs to increase its investigations into sources of pollution sources, and to set targets to eliminate all misconnection.
It further claimed Thames Water’s Surface Water Outfall Programme is small in relation to the problem at hand.
SCAT would offer River Guardians as volunteers who care for and about rivers, to identify problems and scrutinise action.
CPRE London urged Londoners to join their campaign by voicing their support for SCAT to the Mayor of London.
Thames Water was approached for comment.
Image Credit: Ben Morris, Brent River & Canal Society
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