29th June 2022

Kingston Labour and Epsom and Ewell Labour are calling on Thames Water need to stop dumping raw sewage in Hogsmill River & Green Lanes Stream.

We have written a joint letter to Thames Water and both Councils calling for action to be taken.

The pollution affects Epsom, Ewell, Tolworth, Surbiton and Kingston. It then enters the Thames affecting London and the Thames Estuary. The sewage is killing the rivers: destroying wildlife, poisoning animals, and makes it unsafe for kids or animals to play in them. Some local residents who live by the river say it now stinks.

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The Hogsmill is one of only 200 chalk streams in the world and used to be teeming with wildlife, yet it is now so polluted barely any fish live in it.

The causes of the discharges are faulty sensors by Green Lanes Stream; insufficiently large sewage tanks at Manor Rd, Ewell; and comms failures at the outdated Hogsmill A Waste-water Works in Kingston.

While there are plans for the impact of some of these issues to be reduced by a wetlands area in Ewell, to disperse the pollution, we call on Thames Water to stop the issues at source by investing some of its vast profits in upgrading the sewage infrastructure in the area.