LIVE maps now show sewage being dumped in Worcestershire in ‘real time’ as city councillors call for an overhaul of how water companies work.
The sewage map has gone live, showing the situation across the country, including in Worcestershire as Severn Trent Water comes under fire for having too much focus on ‘profits’.
The map – www.sewagemap.co.uk – shows discharge locations, times and durations in real time, based on data supplied by the water companies, including Severn Trent.
A spokesperson for Severn Trent said it was making progress in reducing its impact on watercourses.
One discharge on Monday, January 27 lasted ’21 hours and 34 minutes’, feeding into a tributary of the River Teme near Broad Green.
Another Severn Trent discharge into the River Severn in Kempsey on Tuesday lasted 48 hours according to the live map.
Cllr Andrew Cross, a Green Party city councillor for Leopard Hill and a county councillor for Warndon Parish, said: “Live data maps are a brilliant development – anything accurate that helps raise public awareness of the scourge of pollution in our rivers is beneficial.
The same goes for air quality. Pollution of our rivers, with sewage, and chemicals, is an environment crime that must stop.
Worcester floods regularly; this is worsened by climate change, costs taxpayers, disrupts businesses and wrecks peoples’ homes.
On top of this, our rivers have been shown to contain high levels of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that cause infections which our hospital medics struggle to treat. Antimicrobial Resistance may ultimately end modern healthcare. Without antibiotics, minor infections or injuries can become fatal, and hip or knee replacement operations prohibitively risky. Why on earth are we still allowing companies to discharge chemicals and sewage into our rivers?”
Labour must seize the opportunity to fix what the Conservatives have failed to address, by delivering tougher regulations, stronger enforcement, and a system that puts people, nature, and clean water first. Our rivers and communities deserve better.”
Gareth Mead, River Ranger Manager at Severn Trent said: “While there are many factors that contribute to river health, we’re making progress in reducing our impact on watercourses across Worcestershire and are going further and faster than any other water company.
“It’s been a very wet start to the year and the ground is saturated, so these storm overflows are acting as they should, helping to prevent sewage from backing up.
“However, we know that they’re no longer fit for purpose and we’re continuing to make meaningful progress towards further reducing the need for storm overflows, including improvements at over 150 sites in Worcestershire in the last half of 2024 alone.
“We recommend that anyone looking for the most up-to-date information on our storm overflows, along with information on our investment plans at specific sites, should use the map on the Severn Trent website.”
Severn Trent invested £4.4 billion over a 25-year period up to 2050 to reduce spills and improve river health, including spending £1.7 billion to reduce spills at storm overflows across the Severn Trent region. This includes 154 new interventions already completed across Worcestershire and Gloucestershire this year