Campaigners are attributing privatisation, extreme weather, and politics to collectively creating the water pollution crisis.

Almost all of Britain’s waterways are polluted. In 2023, sewage spills into England’s waterways more than doubled. Recently released figures from the Environment Agency show that there were 3.6 million hours of spills compared to 1.75 million hours in 2022.

A separate report from the Rivers Trust confirms the ‘desperate state’ of the country’s seas and rivers.

The State of Our Rivers Report concluded that no single stretch of river in Northern Ireland or England is in good overall health. The report follows an earlier damning verdict by a House of Commons Committee report in 2022, which concluded that no river in England was free from chemical contamination.