London: Britain on Tuesday announced a plan to protect water supplies, amid a long-running scandal over privatised water firms pumping raw sewage into rivers and onto seashores.
The plan comes amid a continuing pollution scandal, which saw waste water discharges spark the closure of a number of UK beaches at the height of the heatwave last summer.
The Conservative government said its proposals would “clean up our waters and ensure a plentiful supply for the future”.
The “Plan for Water” will seek more investment from water companies, stronger regulation and tougher fines for polluters, it added.
The initiative includes a consultation on a ban on wet wipes containing plastic, which are blamed for causing sewer blockages when flushed down the toilet.
And it will bring forward £1.6 billion ($2.0 billion) of water infrastructure investment to start between now and 2025, although opponents argued this was not new cash.
The announcement received a cautious welcome from some quarters but was condemned as little more than window dressing in others.
“We are strengthening regulation and tightening enforcement,” Environment Secretary Therese Coffey wrote in the right-wing Daily Telegraph newspaper.
“That means increasing inspections, linking shareholder pay-outs to environmental performance, and handing down potentially unlimited penalties for a wider range of offences more quickly.”
The fines would be reinvested into a new Water Restoration Fund to support local groups and community-led schemes to clean up waterways. Coffey cautioned however that there would be no quick fix to replumb Britain’s antiquated Victorian sewage system. –Agencies
