00:00Not his usual gaffe. Stepping out of the East End to knock on one of the most famous doors in
00:05the UK,
00:06actor Danny Dyer says he's on a mission to save Britain's seas. Arriving in London on a flotilla
00:13of boats, the actor delivered a petition alongside Kent MP Kevin McKenna and the leader of campaign
00:19group SOS Whitstable, calling for water companies to be brought back into public ownership.
00:31Delivering a petition directly to Downing Street here doesn't immediately create any
00:35policy change or indeed a debate in parliament. But we do know that the issue of water quality
00:41is already on the Prime Minister's radar. Back at the Labour Party conference in September,
00:47Andy Burnham announced his plans to bring water companies under greater public control.
00:51Angela Eagle will present a strengthened water bill to parliament. The centrepiece of that bill
01:03will be this, the repeal of Margaret Thatcher's ideological ban on public ownership of water
01:14companies. But the question still remains, how would that improve the situation back in Kent?
01:20Kent has been right on the front line of the failure of water companies to deliver water and
01:24our seas and coasts are right on that front line of seeing what happens when the sewage treatment
01:29doesn't work properly. We've already changed the law around water bosses bonuses and the sanctions
01:34of being able to send them to jail for up to two years if they fail. That clearly isn't enough.
01:39It's not just regulation, that's why accountability matters. The accountability is so that actually it's
01:44under direct political control again. So that actually Andy Burnham and the environment minister and
01:50actually MPs representing every constituency have a say in this performance on behalf of the people.
01:56Kent has been at the heart of issues concerning sewage being illegally dumped off its coast,
02:01with Southern Water being fined a record £90 million in 2021 for long-term breaches of environmental law.
02:09In a statement, Southern Water said they're tackling the root causes of pollution through
02:13their investment programme and have already delivered significant improvements, cutting
02:17incidents by almost a third. In Kent, they said they're spending more than £300 million on reducing
02:23storm overflows and upgrading infrastructure, and that recent court cases relate to historic incidents
02:29during a period of underinvestment. They said the company has changed significantly and is focusing on
02:35improvements. The government has said the bill should be ready in time for Christmas,
02:39but whether this will prevent Kent's Coast from continuing to receive some unwelcome sewage-related
02:45gifts remains to be seen. Sophie Denny for KMTV in Downing Street.
