Protests held at Kent coast by Surfers Against Sewage

KentOnline / KMTV

Huge protests are being held in Kent and the rest of UK by campaign group Surfers Against Sewage.  They're gathering for demonstrations in Hythe and Broadstairs, as they call on the government and regulator to hold water companies to account.  Giles Bristow is the group's CEO.

Transcript

00:00 Frequently, I get ear infections or throat infections. So like

00:03 sore ears, sore throat, sore nose. But it can make you sick,

00:07 it can be vomit, you have diarrhea. Last year, I had like

00:11 rashes all around my midriff. So in some way, we're ingesting

00:16 like sewage from the water, right and other toxins too. But

00:20 we're taking that on board and it's making people sick.

00:23 Sometimes people seriously sick. We published a report last year

00:27 in 2023. And that had all sorts of health cases, nasty cases

00:31 that people had got. But we had about 2000 people contact us

00:35 directly to say they got sick from going in the water. And

00:39 what was really surprising about that is 60% of the people who

00:42 contacted us were swimming or surfing in what's known as

00:46 excellent bathing water. So it's meant to be some of our cleanest,

00:49 yet people are still getting sick from it. So this just isn't

00:53 right. We want the regulator and the government to hold the water

00:56 companies to account. So we need them to enforce the law, we need

01:00 to prioritise nature based solutions, because we need to

01:03 clean this stuff up quickly. We want to see an end to sewage

01:06 pollution in the places that we swim and surf and in high

01:10 priority nature sites by 2030 at the very latest.

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