Teddington Lock pumped full of raw sewage creating 'environmental hazard', warns furious MP
Tap above to watch video report by Rags Martel
An MP criticised the 'absolutely disgusting' sight of what appears to be raw sewage being pumped into Teddington Lock in south west London.
Sarah Olney, the Liberal Democrat MP for Richmond Park, shared a video on X of what she called an 'environmental hazard'.
People living nearby found, what they claim, was a huge build-up of raw sewage at the lock on the border of Kingston and Richmond.
"This is absolutely disgusting and a clear environmental hazard. For too long, water companies have been allowed to get away with pumping raw sewage into our rivers," Sarah Olney said.
"Thames Water keeps promising to clean up its act, but their commitments are worth about as much as the stuff they keep dumping in the river," she added.
A Thames Water spokesperson said: "Taking action to improve the health of rivers is a key focus for us and we want to lead the way with our transparent approach to data.
"We remain the only company to provide live alerts for all untreated discharges and this ‘near real-time’ data is available to customers as a map on our website and is also available through an open data platform for third parties, such as swimming and environmental groups to use.
"While the video shared hasn’t been officially verified and there hasn’t been a storm discharge from our nearby sites in Richmond and Teddington, our overflow map indicates Esher sewage treatment works have been impacted by heavy rainfall in recent days.
"We are working hard to make these discharges unnecessary and have published plans to upgrade over 250 of our sewage treatment works and sewers to treat the high volumes of incoming sewage and reduce the need for overflows during wet weather, including plans to upgrade our Esher and Gerrards Cross sites.
"We regard any untreated discharges as unacceptable, and we’re committed to stopping them from being necessary.
"Storm overflows are designed to operate automatically when the sewer network is about to be overwhelmed which then releases diluted wastewater into rivers, rather than letting it back up into people’s homes."
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