Measures to reduce harm from storm overflows to be made law

Defra ‘New legal duties on water companies and government will reduce sewage discharged into waterways. Measures to reduce sewage discharges from storm overflows will be put into law, the government confirmed today (Monday 29 March), as part of an ambitious agenda to build back greener from the pandemic.

During wet weather, storm overflows act to prevent sewers becoming overloaded with a combination of sewage and rain and release diluted wastewater into rivers. However, their use has increased in recent years as climate change has led to greater rainfall and water infrastructure has not kept pace with population growth. Reducing the reliance of water companies on storm overflows is important to help cut pollution in waterways, and earlier this year the Government announced it was working with Philip Dunne MP on shared ambitions to tackle high levels of sewage in our rivers, following the introduction of his Private Member’s Bill in 2020.

This ambition has now been turned into action, with the government confirming that a number of key policies will be made law. This will create three key duties to oversee some of the changes needed to improve our water environment:

• a duty on government to publish a plan by September 2022 to reduce sewage discharges from storm overflows;
• a duty on government to report to Parliament on progress on implementing the plan; and
• a duty on water companies to publish data on storm overflow operation on an annual basis.

This builds on the work already underway by the Storm Overflows Taskforce, set up in September 2020 to bring together government, the water industry, regulators and environmental NGOs to accelerate progress in this area.’

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