John visited a waste water treatment plant in Bexhill next to the sea.
‘It’s unacceptable in this day and age that parents should have to check on waste discharges before deciding to take the children for a day out to Bexhill, Hastings or Camber Sands.
But the Green Party’s proposal is that the water companies, that were given away by Margaret Thatcher about forty years ago, should be taken into public ownership, and in the meantime sewage discharges that are illegal be properly prosecuted, rather than being just “knuckle-rapped”.
In that way we’re going to give hope to everybody that they can have a swim in a clean sea again.
So for Real Hope, and Real Change, on the 4th July – Vote Green!’
Safer waters for us all – from our 2024 Manifesto
We are clear that the only way to end the scandal of our filthy water is to end the failed experiment with privatisation and bring the water companies back into public ownership. Money that is now being extracted by shareholders would be invested to fix the leaks and rebuild infrastructure. Public water companies must also ensure that abstraction respects nature.
Elected Greens will push to restore rivers and take a nature-based solutions approach to the prevention of flooding and storm overflows.
We would increase DEFRA’s budget by £1.5bn, allowing an increase in funding for the Environment Agency and Natural England, to support the vital work they do to protect our environment. This would include developing a soil health monitoring programme for England, to match those in Scotland and Wales, to assess and understand changes in the health of soil over time. This would end the flow of pollution into rivers and the sea from fertilisers, agricultural waste and sewage, through effective monitoring and enforcement.