Can the UK eradicate river sewage? | A NationalWorld interview with activist Feargal Sharkey of The Underones - video Dailymotion

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00:00 Hi, I'm Isabella Bonham, a reporter for National World, and I've been chatting to Fergal Sharkey,

00:05 the singer-turned-environmental lobbyist. He was a former singer of the '80s pop group

00:10 Undertone and now is one of the most high-profile campaigners and loudest voices against river

00:15 pollution, fighting for an end to sewage being discharged into UK rivers and seas. I ask

00:21 about why he started campaigning against sewage spills, why the UK is in this mess, who is

00:26 to blame and what is the best we can hope for? Can the UK eradicate sewage spills?

00:31 First of all, I'd just like to start with, you know, when did you start campaigning against

00:37 sewage? What made you get into it?

00:39 Well, ironically enough, it goes back to I've spent a lifetime standing around in or next

00:47 to rivers, normally waving a fly rod furiously around my head whilst trying to persuade some

00:55 completely uncooperative, decadent trout to oblige me by grabbing the hold of the end

01:01 of my line. I used to be, until quite recently, the chairman of what is the oldest fly fishing

01:09 club in the country. And that is what directly got me interested in rivers, was my hobby

01:16 of fly fishing and watching particularly the decline of the Anwyl and Magna fishery, which

01:23 is what I was chairman of and finding ourselves in, being put in a position where we ended

01:30 up basically taking the Environment Agency to the doors of the High Court, simply to

01:36 get them to do something about the water levels and the volume of water in the river at that

01:43 time. Now, I have to admit, that problem has now been resolved. But that simple experience

01:50 of why 60 ladies and gentlemen of a certain age had to fundamentally take the Environment

01:59 Agency to the High Court, that just kind of made me oddly curious about what else might

02:07 possibly be going on.

02:09 What do you think of people, you know, getting involved and taking a stand? I know you've

02:12 touched on that briefly with the case of Joe standing up against South West Water.

02:20 I can barely now leave my house and get on the tube and go into London without any number

02:26 of people stopping me and wanting to talk about sewage. Now, I wish they would talk

02:32 to me about other things in my life, but if it has to be sewage, right now it has to be

02:36 sewage. The point I'm building up to, the last time I had that kind of level of attention

02:42 from anonymous members of the public, I had the number one record in this country. That's

02:49 how much this has cut through. That's how much it's infuriated and angered people. So

02:56 the truth is, we now know, by way of example, 56% of voters are now saying the sewage scandal

03:04 is going to influence how they vote at the next election. And my message to the water

03:09 industry from my own experience and from the data and the research I've seen, it's over.

03:15 You're finished. If you think you're going to carry on for the next 30 years doing what

03:20 you've done for the last 30, you're badly mistaken.

03:23 Well, we can see from your Twitter, you're active every day, holding water companies

03:28 to account. And I'd just like to know, who do you think is to blame, really, for the

03:34 mess that we're in now?

03:36 There has, without question, been an extraordinary lack of political oversight and a lack of

03:42 really paying attention to what has been going on now for 30 years. Clearly, we have a regulatory

03:48 system that has failed, not only to protect the environment, as we now know, there's not

03:54 a single river in England that is not polluted. And one of the biggest sources of that pollution

04:01 is the water industry. And that simple statistic begs the fact, what in God's name has the

04:08 environment agency been doing for the last 30 years? When all of this has been going

04:12 on, they have ram-raided these companies for cash. And in very general terms, those companies

04:19 have now made off with £72 billion worth of bill payers' money, leaving those companies

04:26 now about £64 billion in debt. The whole thing has been an absolute tragedy from one

04:34 end to the other.

04:35 How do you think this scandal can be solved? Do you have any sympathy for the water companies

04:44 in that they've got all of the massive uphold of the system to fix? Is there any sympathy

04:52 there? How do we go about solving it?

04:55 I'm really happy to challenge the industry on this. They are now kind of begging for

05:00 sympathy. They have and have had from day one a statutory obligation to build and operate

05:09 and maintain a sewage system, and I'm quoting, "capable of effectually dealing with the

05:15 contents of those sewers." That's the game they're in. That's the business they're in.

05:22 They've not delivered that. They've not maintained that legal obligation. So guess what? Water

05:27 companies get absolutely zero sympathy for me whatsoever.

05:32 One aspect is privatisation. Another aspect also, I just wanted to touch on Brexit. Do

05:37 you think that's played a part in reducing regulations around pollution?

05:41 No, because the truth is the regulations that we have actually came about because of the

05:48 European Union. Most of them relate back to the Water Framework Directive. The water...

05:55 God help me, I actually know this. The Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive. So all of

06:02 the legislation that was ever needed to fix this has actually been in place for at least

06:08 20, if not 30 years. The truth is that water companies have blindly, deliberately, blatantly,

06:15 in my opinion, ignored it. I'll give you a simple example of that. The UK government

06:21 was taken to court by the European Commission in 2012 and found guilty by the European Court

06:30 of Justice for acting illegally and allowing water companies in England to dump water into

06:38 the environment in the way they do. So the truth is Brexit hasn't changed that. The legislation

06:44 is always there. They've always ignored it and pretty much ignored it from day one.

06:49 If you could say something to the water companies, the regulators, what would you say to them?

06:55 Oh, do your job. Do your job. The law says that they should not be exploiting our chalk

07:03 streams by over-extracting them. The law says that they should not be dumping sewage willy-nilly

07:10 into our rivers and onto our beaches. That they should be building and maintaining a

07:15 sewage system capable of effectively dealing with the contents of those sewers. So go and

07:22 do your job. Go and comply with the law. And by the way, can I have a refund for all the

07:26 money I've paid you for 30 years to do a job you clearly haven't done?

07:30 Do you have any events coming up in particular?

07:33 The next one for me is on Wednesday morning in Cardiff. I am also vice chairman of River

07:42 Action and River Action are taking DEFRA and the EA to the High Court in Cardiff on Wednesday.

07:51 And on Wednesday morning I will be in Cardiff outside the court, nine o'clock in the morning.

07:56 Do feel free to come along, come and join in, bring whatever drums, triangles, noise

08:02 making kit that you've got to offer. And I'll see you outside the court on that nine o'clock

08:06 on Wednesday morning in Cardiff.

08:07 Well, you should definitely keep challenging them and keep up the great work campaigning

08:13 and posting on Twitter every day. Keep that up because you're doing an amazing job with

08:19 what you're doing, putting pressure on the companies and regulators. But I really appreciate

08:23 you speaking to me today. Yeah, and hope to talk to you soon.

08:27 Thank you.

08:28 Thank you.

08:29 Thank you.

08:29 [BLANK_AUDIO]

Can the UK eradicate river sewage? | A NationalWorld interview with activist Feargal Sharkey of The Underones

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