To be frank, for the past three or four years, my team and I have had to discuss excrement on an almost daily basis. It is the stuff ruining the lives of my constituents in Whitstable.
In a coastal town such as ours, so much revolves around the sea: our sailing clubs, seafood and hospitality businesses, and our reputation as a top British tourist destination. Whitstable is always thriving, busy with dog walkers, boats coming and going and visitors enjoying a pint at the Neptune or a tub of locally caught whelks with their chips, but there are days when regular swimmers and sailors cannot enjoy our waters at all, something we see far too often.
So-called rare storm events are not that at all. We have not had any storms, yet Southern Water has again been releasing sewage water into the sea for 24 hours straight this weekend—why? Whitstable is still a great place to visit, but while these incidents keep happening, there is a real danger to UK tourism, which has already suffered a great hit to visitor numbers since Brexit. French schoolchildren, who did not previously require a passport, are no longer flocking to Canterbury’s market stalls or studying at our language schools. We simply cannot afford the added damage that the headlines about sewage are doing to our economy.
However, it seems that not everyone is suffering. Those at the top of the water companies can probably afford to holiday elsewhere, while my constituents, whose incomes have taken a considerable hit, are expected to pay their water bills in full. It is little wonder that many are really angry about this. SOS Whitstable is a campaign group that was formed following a public meeting I held in the summer of 2021 so that residents could directly confront the bosses of Southern Water. It is a group of
very driven and knowledgeable campaigners who give their time for free, holding the water company to account and refusing to let it get away with dumping sewage on our beaches.
SOS Whitstable recently appeared in Paul Whitehouse’s excellent, must-watch BBC documentary “Our Troubled Rivers”. I urge anyone who wants to understand more about this situation to watch it on catch-up. SOS also started a petition, recently handed in to No. 10, calling on the Government to reconsider renationalising the water industry.
I have asked three Secretaries of State to visit our town and hear from residents about exactly how they are affected. I say to the current Secretary of State, “Please come and take me up on that offer and listen to our sailors, our swimmers and our tourist businesses.”
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