Last year, people gathered on Tankerton beach to protest against sewage discharges by Southern Water (Image: Getty Images)
A beautiful seaside town in the UK is reportedly “being ruined as sewage is constantly pumped into the sea”.
Whistable in Kent was among the list of the ‘best and worst’ seaside towns in Britain released by the Telegraph earlier this year.
The town received an impressive rating of 87/100, landing it in third place overall.
With gorgeous lanes, historic streets and breathtaking beach, the town is always on the traveler’s priority list.
However, it is being ruined after hundreds of hours of sewage is being pumped out into the sea by Southern Water.
One of UK’s best seaside towns ‘being ruined as sewage is constantly pumped into sea’ (Image: Getty Images)
Protesters are vying to draw attention to the pollution levels in the seaside town on Saturday, which suffered more sewage releases than any other location in Kent in 2022.
The protest will be joined by Feargal Sharkey and Jenny Jones as speakers along with Paul Whitehouse and Barry McGuigan.
SOS Whitstable member Ed Acteson told Express.co.uk: “We (SOS Whitstable) are extremely concerned about the impact of the ongoing sewage pollution crisis on our town. It is extremely detrimental to the environment, poses a significant risk to public health and is damaging the reputation of Whitstable and our local businesses.
“We welcome promises of further investment in infrastructure by Southern Water but do not feel as though they have gone far enough or fast enough to this point.
“In 2022 Whitstable suffered the most storm overflow releases in Kent and they lasted for a combined 648 hours.
“This year we have already seen 595 hours of sewage and, with three months of the year to go, are concerned about how much higher that number is going to go.
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Last year, a protest hosted by SOS Whitstable on Whitstable beach attracted more than 2,000 people (Image: Getty Images)
“We are appalled at the continued lack of action from the government and the regulatory bodies on this issue, which does nothing but enable the water companies to pollute our waterways whilst claiming huge dividends and we will continue to protest until meaningful action is taken.”
Whitstable is one of Southern Water’s six project areas to look at solutions of storm overflows, with a number of interventions underway aiming to cut them by 20 per cent by 2025.
Storm overflows are designed to be used to release excess water through outputs to rivers and seas when heavy rain puts pressure on sewer networks which could lead to flooding.
Southern Water Pathfinder Delivery Lead for Kent, Jon Yates, said: “Tackling storm overflows is our top priority and I can assure everyone in Whitstable that we’re fully focused on using every tool at our disposal to ensure that storm overflows are significantly reduced.
“We’re doing this through working with partners and creating nature-based and engineering solutions But this work will take time and our focus is to find what works and then scale it up across our region so we can see positive results.”
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