Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to help improve the water quality of Dymchurch and St Mary’s Bay.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency (EA) takes statutory samples and ensures compliance with the requirements of the Bathing Water Regulations. They collect investigative samples and analyse the results alongside other environmental data to help identify sources of pollution.
Dymchurch and St Marys Bay are priority bathing waters for local EA teams this year. No single source of pollution has been identified at these locations. The EA will continue to work with others including the water company, the local authority and communities to improve and protect water quality by identifying and stopping polluting inputs.
Water quality improvements at St. Marys Bay last year saw a return to ‘sufficient’ classification. This bathing water no longer has advice against bathing status, however there is still work to do to ensure water quality continues to improve.
The EA has worked in partnership with Southern Water to find and eliminate possible sources of contamination from their network, including misconnections. Southern Water has completed extensive checks of their sewerage infrastructure and have rectified issues throughout the investigations.
The EA encourages local communities to report pollution incidents that could be impacting bathing, surface or groundwater to their 24/7 incident hotline so they can respond and stop any pollution.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions he has had with Southern Water on steps to improve water quality in the South East.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
In the first week of office, the Secretary of State and I met water companies’ chief executives, including Southern Water, where they signed up to a tough set of initial measures for reform, including on putting customers and the environment at the heart of their businesses.
I have also met with companies that are failing in their environmental performance and made clear to them that we expect change. I will continue to meet with water companies and their boards, including Southern Water, through 2025 to set out the Government’s expectation of improved performance.
This Government has been clear there is no excuse for poor performance, and we will not look the other way while companies routinely fail to meet agreed standards.
In October 2024, the Secretary of State and the Welsh Government launched an independent commission, led by Sir Jon Cunliffe, into the water sector and its regulation, in what is expected to form the largest review of the industry since privatisation. These wide-ranging recommendations will form the basis of further legislation to attract long-term investment and clean up our waters for good.