By Justin Madders

MP for Ellesmere Port

The water industry was not immune to the rush towards the mass privatisation of our utilities in the 1980’s but even now, nearly forty years later, the consequences of that are becoming increasingly apparent. The issue of raw sewage being pumped into our waters has risen up the political agenda in recent months, thanks to the persistent campaigning of people including the former pop star turned environmental campaigner, Feargal Sharkey. It has become increasingly apparent that the water industry is not taking its responsibilities to keep our rivers and oceans clean with research showing that over the last seven years, 1,276 years’ worth of raw sewage has been dumped into British waters. On average, this equates to a a dumping event taking place every two-and-a-half minutes in places where people live, work and holiday. Not one English river is classed as being in a healthy condition, none meet good chemical standards and few meet good ecological standards but water companies are making huge profits and making significant payments out to shareholders. It is clear the system is not working. Labour have pledged that there should be mandatory monitoring on all sewage outlets, introducing automatic fines for discharges, so that we see a stop to the systematic sewage dumping that is really quite shameful. In Ellesmere Port and Neston we have had over 650 sewage dumping events locally last year which is not far off two taking place every single day. We really ought to be aiming to do much better than this.

This week marks the 25th anniversary of the 1998 Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland which sought to bring to an end the decades of terror by establishing a completely new form of governance for Northern Ireland, based upon the sharing of power between the political wings of the largest religious groups. Whilst in recent years in particular that power sharing has not always worked out with the Stormont Assembly currently suspended again, and there are still outbreaks of violence in Northern Ireland, the last 25 years have brought peace and stability that would have been unimaginable to those growing up in Northern Ireland in the 25 years preceding the Good Friday agreement. There is no doubt that the complexities of Brexit relating to Ireland and Northern Ireland have made agreement much harder than it might have been but it is a far cry from the division and death I certainly remember when growing up. To quote Mo Mowlam who was one of those most involved in securing the agreement “People working together can overcome many obstacles, often within themselves, and by doing so can make the world a better place.” Wise words that we ought to be reminding ourselves of frequently.

Finally, congratulations to Vauxhall Motors FC, who this Monday celebrated becoming the North West Counties Premier Division Champions with a thumping 4-1 win over AFC Liverpool and farewell and thank you to Rev Gordon McGuinness who this week led his last service at St Thomas’s in the Ellesmere Port Parish. He and Julia have been stalwarts of the community for a couple of decades now and will be sorely missed.