A senior Conservative MP has said he swam in sewage when visiting South Wales as a child.
Ashford MP Damian Green, 67, said attitudes towards sewage spills had changed in recent years.
England’s water companies recently pledged £10bn after apologizing for “not acting fast enough”.
“I’m not denying it’s a big problem, but it always has been. I remember swimming in sewage as a kid in South Wales.
“Jackson’s Bay in Barry used to be a sewage outlet where we all went and paddled and swam; it was considered acceptable,” Green said in ITV peston.
Fair is one above the worst poor rating.
Welsh Water recently said it would spend £840m by 2025, followed by another £1.4bn between 2024 and 2030 on work to tackle the problem and protect the environment.
Chief Executive Peter Perry said last week that he and the company’s chief financial officer, Mike Davies, would not receive their bonus this year after the company’s wastewater figures were released.
Jackson’s Bay water quality dropped from good to fair in 2020
Emma Clancy, chief executive of the Consumer Council for Water (CCW), said this could mark a “tipping point for water companies taking charge of addressing the challenges facing the sector.”
But Josh Harries of Surfers Against Sewage, an environmental charity that campaigns to protect the ocean, said it was hard to believe the water companies.
“Why should we trust them? They have overseen decades of mismanagement of our sewerage network and our rivers and seas pay the price.”
“We need stronger regulation and strict enforcement to hold these companies accountable.”
Most sewers in Wales are “combined sewers” and carry both sewage and surface water from roofs and drains.
An overflow during heavy rain can cause the sewer system to overflow.
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