Save our rivers, stopping the sewage scandal

/ River Cleaning, Water Quality

On 12th November, Bristol City Council (BCC) debated a motion at their Full Council meeting “Save our rivers, stopping the sewage scandal”.  The motion passed with support from Lib Dems, Greens and Labour. This is what was agreed:

Full Council resolves to: Request that the BCC Environment and Sustainability Committee consider the views expressed by this motion and establish a Working Group with One City partners for the purpose of developing policy to improve the water quality of Bristol’s rivers and waterways. Full Council recommends that this working group could, as a starting point, investigate the following measures:

  1. Build and maintain a database on river quality across Bristol to properly monitor and assess the environmental state of our waterways.  This should include working with existing organisations such as the Bristol Avon Rivers Trust, who currently run a Water Guardians project to collect this data.
  2. Work with partners to trial and launch a project to encourage the use of water butts, both residentially and commercially, as a rainwater harvesting scheme to reduce the amount of rainwater entering our storm drain and sewage systems. 
  3. Launch an awareness campaign to inform the public of what they can do to prevent sewage spills, including a reminder of what not to put into the storm drain system.
  4. Collaborate with external partners to ensure that surface water and wastewater from private properties enter the correct drainage system. Council Officers should also ensure this when involved with the design or the approval of drainage infrastructure.
  5. Explore opportunities for installing Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) on Council-owned land.
  6. Consider the issue of sewage overflows as part of the ‘Managing for Nature Programme’. 

Full Council further resolves to write to:

  1. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to highlight the issues raised in this motion and to call for the Government to commit to ending the sewage scandal.
  2. The Chief Executive of Wessex Water, to call for urgent action to address the impact of wastewater discharges in our local rivers.

If you are interested in the full council debate, watch this YouTube video from 2 hours, 22 mins in:

With thanks to Peter Coleman-Smith for this report

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