See the full council motion below.
Full Council notes that:
1. Every river in England is now polluted beyond legal limits, with raw sewage spills from overflows contributing massively to the pollution of our waterways. Wessex Water provides sewerage services for our region, and in 2023 the company dumped sewage 41,453 times for a total of 372,341 hours.
2. Our local rivers - including the River Avon, the River Frome, the River Malago, the River Trym, and the Brislington Brook - are particularly threatened by further sewage discharges. In 2023, Bristol had 4,433 sewage spills – making it the fourth-worst UK city for sewage spills by area density.
3. Since 2021, the water regulator Ofwat has not fined any water company for sewage dumping.
4. High volumes of rainwater entering the sewerage system, as well as the addition of pollutants from human sources, increases the risk of overflows and sewage dumping. In addition to sewage, run-off from farms and wash-off from roads also contribute to river pollution.
5. National and local organisations, including the Bristol and Avon Rivers Trust, are campaigning to improve our river quality.
Full Council believes that the UK Government should:
1. Replace Ofwat with a tough new regulator with new powers to prevent sewage dumps, increase inspection regularity of water companies and farms, and rigorously prosecute offenders in conjunction with the Environmental Audit Committee.
2. Strengthen the Office for Environmental Protection and provide more funding to the Environment Agency and Natural England to help protect our rivers and enforce environmental laws.
3. Properly fund local and highways authorities so that they can introduce systems to prevent road pollutants from entering our waterways.
Full Council resolves to:
- Request that the Environment and Sustainability Committee consider the views expressed by this motion and works with One City Environment Board Partners to develop policy to improve the water quality of Bristol’s rivers and waterways.
Full Council recommends that the Environment and Sustainability Committee could, as a starting point, investigate the following measures:
1. Build and maintain a database on river quality across Bristol to properly monitor and assess the environmental state of our waterways. This should include working with existing organisations such as the Bristol and Avon Rivers Trust, who currently run a Water Guardians project to collect this data.
2. Work with partners to trial and launch a project to encourage the use of water butts, both residentially and commercially, as a rainwater harvesting scheme to reduce the amount of rainwater entering our storm drain and sewage systems.
3. Launch an awareness campaign to inform the public of what they can do to prevent sewage spills, including a reminder of what not to put into the storm drain system.
4. Collaborate with external partners to ensure that surface water and wastewater from private properties enter the correct drainage system. Council Officers should also ensure this when involved with the design or the approval of drainage infrastructure.
5. Explore opportunities for installing Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) on Council-owned land.
6. Consider the issue of sewage overflows as part of the ‘Managing for Nature Programme’.
Full Council further resolves to write to:
1. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to highlight the issues raised in this motion and to call for the Government to commit to ending the sewage scandal.
2. The Chief Executive of Wessex Water, to call for urgent action to address the impact of wastewater discharges in our local rivers.
Further, they should be asked to detail what actions they are taking to improve our river quality, and they should be supplied with a copy of this motion.