Raw sewage hell in posh UK towns as 'streets flow' with disgusting mess
Residents of the constituency neighbouring that of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak are finding themselves unable to even go for a dip in the river for fear of catching a disease.
Residents in two stunning towns in north Yorkshire have found themselves blighted by sewage spills in the streets and nearby villages.
The constituency of Skipton and Ripon - which borders PM Rishi Sunak's constituency of Richmond - has seen 600 sewage spills in the last five years.
Parents have reportedly stopped allowing their children to go down to nearby rivers to paddle, while waste lines the edges of roads.
Councillor Andy Brown, Green Party representative for Aire Valley, told the Telegraph: "Parents have stopped their children going down to the river to paddle because it’s a mile downstream from the sewage farm where there are releases even on dry, hot days.
"I received a complaint from the mother of a 15-year-old boy who had been cycling through Snaygill [near to Skipton] over the school holidays and had been disgusted by raw sewage on the path on one of the driest, hottest days of the year."
Other locals report never going swimming anymore as the "amount of sewage makes them no-go zones".
Jemma McConville-Roe, 39, said: "The thought of sewage swimming around my face is gross.
"I worry that I could get E. coli or an eye infection. It’s always in the back of my mind.
"The water quality has gone downhill – places that used to have bathing status now have signs up saying there is raw sewage in the water.
"I have a seven-year-old and I used to let her paddle in the river with me, but I won’t let her now. I’ve signed what feels like a million petitions but no one is paying attention."
Conservatives and Independents representative for Wathvale and Bishop Monkton Nick Brown said the sewage spills were due to "heavy rain".
He said that when there is such weather, "combined sewers have to have an outflow and when that occurs, sewage invariably comes onto the streets."
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Heavy rain is only set to worsen as a result of climate change.
The Met Office explains that warmer weather leads to more water particles being carried into the air by the ocean - which in turn leads to more rain.
Their website reads: "As the climate continues to warm, the effect will increase, and heavy rainfall events are expected to become more common."
Over the last few decades, the UK has got wetter - with 9 percent more rainfall in 2011 - 2020 compared to the period of 1961 - 1990.
A recent poll suggested the issue of sewage disposal is a key one for Brits and may guide voting intentions.
The polling of 2,270 people was carried out by Savanta for the Liberal Democrats ahead of the party's annual conference in Bournemouth.
40 percent of those polled said that they would not vote for an MP who opposed a hypothetical ban on releasing effluent into waterways - up from 36 percent in January of last year.
Four-in-ten of these were people who voted for the Conservative Party in 2019.
Water companies in England released sewage for 1.75million hours last year, with discharges harming wildlife and wider river ecosystems with toxic chemicals and bacteria as well as fuelling the rapid growth of algae. Yorkshire Water has been contacted for comment.
A Yorkshire Water spokesperson said: "We understand sewage escapes can be distressing for customers. Over 85% of the incidents in Skipton and Ripon in this five-year period were as a result of blockages within the sewer network, which can be caused by unflushables such as wet wipes or fats entering the network from properties, or even roots growing into the sewers.
"We invest heavily in our wastewater network across Yorkshire and in the five-year period to the end of 2025 will spend £83.7m on projects to reduce sewage escapes from the network.
"We have also invested in 40,000 innovative sewer alarms across the region, including in the Ripon and Skipton areas, deploying the technology to alert us to problems much earlier so they can be resolved before wastewater escapes the network. We are looking to expand this to 300,000 alarms in Yorkshire’s sewers in the coming years.
"Our teams will continue to work hard to deliver improvements in the next two years and beyond as we continue planning for the next five-year business plan between 2025 and 2030."
