Protestors highlight river sewage

The ‘Pink Rebels’ of Extinction Rebellion Wimborne have staged a protest to highlight the issue of Wessex Water discharging storm water containing raw sewage into the River Stour.

The group says the watercourse is an ‘internationally-recognised chalk stream’ yet, they claim, Wessex Water discharged raw sewage into it on 449 occasions in 2021.

“This is a danger to wildlife, to the health of people who use the river for recreation, and to their pets,” they said.

Solicitor Joanna Bury, of Extinction Rebellion Wimborne said they had staged the protest because: “England’s sewage infrastructure is in urgent need of updating and we want to alert everyone to the lack of a correspondingly urgent timetable to deal with this problem.”

She branded the Government’s Storm Overflows Reduction Plan, which states that by 2035, water companies must improve storm overflows in bathing or high priority nature sites as: “Too little, too late.”

The group say they have placed their own ‘Blue Plaques’ around the area to ‘commemorate’ the sewage dumping.

A spokesman for Wessex Water said: “Storm overflows operate automatically during or after intense rainfall to prevent flooding of properties and are licensed by the Environment Agency.

“What’s released is mostly rainwater after combined sewers have become overwhelmed.

“We agree that storm overflows aren’t fit for the 21st century, so we’re spending £3million per month on improving them and reducing how often they operate.”