Thousands of protesters will took to coasts and rivers across the UK on Saturday to protest against the state of the nation’s waterways. The protests have been coordinated by Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), who are calling for an end to the sewage discharges plaguing the UK’s rivers and seas, as sewage overflows continue to have a devastating impact on ecological and human health.
the Yorkshire Post spoke to Steve Crawford in Scarborough.
the Yorkshire Post spoke to Steve Crawford in Scarborough.
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00:00 My name is Stephen Crawford, I represent Surf Against Sewage. We're on South Bay Beach in Scarborough
00:05 and we're part of the national SAS Surf Against Sewage big paddle out to protest about water quality.
00:12 All these people have a great passion for the sea, passion for the rivers, passion for all the water we have water users.
00:19 Last year Yorkshire Waters discharge went up by almost 50% and we're just fed up.
00:24 This company and the EA and governments are not taking it seriously what's happening
00:28 and we really want to see things improve and see things get to a level where we can start enjoying our seas and rivers as we should do.
00:35 Before we go in the sea there's a thing called a Safe for Seas and Rivers service which is an app
00:39 which lets you know if there's any sewage discharged in the area so we check that so we can do our best to avoid it.
00:45 This beach has had persistent pollution problems for a lot of years so that's why it's got such a poor status.
00:51 I've been surfing now for over 40 years and I've actually paddled literally through human excrement in the water
00:58 and it's really really really not acceptable.
01:01 A lot of people now have heard about things called CSOs which are combined storm outfalls and this is the main part of the problem.
01:06 So after heavy rain or sometimes when there are mistakes these pipes discharge human sewage into the sea.
01:12 So you can use a thing called a Safe for Seas and Rivers service app which SAS provide which will let you know if there's going to be a problem
01:17 because this is what we want, we want to enjoy our seas.
01:20 We don't want to be having to worry about going in the water.
01:23 I mean Yorkshire is a county of water, we've got so many reservoirs, so much coastline,
01:27 we don't want to feel threatened about going in the water, we want to actually enjoy it.
01:30 We want the companies to start taking this seriously and start doing their jobs properly.
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