Coastal constituencies treated as ‘open sewers’ as Labour claims millions of hours of sewage discharged

Shadow environment secretary Jim McMahon said coastal communities should not have to worry about ‘encountering filthy raw sewage’

Shadow environment secretary Jim McMahon (Peter Byrne/PA) (PA Archive)

Almost a million hours worth of sewage discharges occurred across coastal constituencies last year, according to Labour analysis.

The party has highlighted data from the Environment Agency (EA) which it says shows 141,777 sewage dumping events across 137 of a total of 139 coastal constituencies in England and Wales in 2022.

Shadow environment secretary Jim McMahon said people who live by the coast “should be able to just enjoy the place where they live without having to worry about encountering filthy raw sewage”.