To cancel UK holiday after watching Dirty Business

[Neilsparentsarecomingfortea]

I have booked a week away in Devon for partners 50th birthday. Lovely cottage with a hot tub.
However, since watching dirty business I am considering cancelling (will lose 3rd of booking - which isn't money I can easily write off) as I don't feel it's worth risking going on the UK beaches anymore. If my family were to become ill I would never forgive myself.
I am absolutely furious that EA have allowed this kind of corruption to continue for so long. And that the water companies are polluting our rivers and seas at such an alarming rate. How do they sleep at night?

Don't even get me started on the impact to our wildlife.
WWYD?
I have downloaded the surfers against sewage app but genuinely worried to allow my child onto the beach in future after seeing what happened to poor Heather and her family. Considering selling my campervan.

I shocked the voting as you as being unreasonable, you are definitely not being unreasonable at all. Only 15yrs ago our waterways were clean and we had dozens of blue flag beaches. The raw sewage, including agricultural sewage abd waste, being pumped into our waterways and beaches is a direct consequence of greed. It’s been in the news for years and many awareness campaigns have been done but I am glad more and more families like yourself are waking up to the reality of how the water companies are poisoning the water, the land, the wildlife and humans in the pursuit of profit. When I fly to the UK these days you can see from the air the awful pollution in the sea by the shores and in the rivers and lakes.

If beaches/sea swimming are important to you then YANBU. Go abroad.

We live very close to the sea and up to ten years ago would swim in the sea all the time. Haven't done for ten years now, after the sewage dumping became very obvious. Now we go to Spain instead and stay next to a lovely swimming cove.

It's a TRAGEDY. We are an unfit country with very few opportunities for being physical outdoors, and this one has been taken away from us. I've tried campaigning myself but everything is met with silence. The government needs to act.

The river Dart is on the top of the poops chart for sewage discharge
https://top-of-the-poops.org/waterway/south-west-water/river-dart

Dry day sewage dumps are becoming more common:
https://www.dartmouth-today.co.uk/news/river-dart-dry-day-sewage-spills-alarming-725227

This is far from the normal big storm overflow accidental ooops spills. This is deliberate and widespread.

Dartmoor is one of the worst affected national parks:
A report by the Campaign for National Parks (CNP) and the Rivers Trust also found that more than half of the rivers in national parks failed to meet the good ecological status required by law. Slurry and fertiliser runoff from farms and toxic pesticides also contributed to the ailing state of the bodies of water. The national parks worst affected by sewage overflows were Dartmoor, the South Downs, the Broads and Eryri, also known as Snowdonia.

We live by the sea and every morning when the yummy mummies head off for their cold dip in their DryRobes I feel no envy whatsoever. They clearly aren’t checking Surfers Against Sewage because we have regular discharges here. I have health and immunity issues and wouldn’t dare go further than feet in.

Are they less clean now than in the 70s, 80s and 90s?

I understand that crumbling infrastructure has had an effect, but have the regulations changed since then?

Are ye Nesh?

I haven’t seen the show but cancelling a holiday and losing money you can’t afford to lose seems a bit daft. The cottage with a hot tub sounds lovely, and surely there are other things you can do in Devon?

It depends how important sea swimming is to you on holiday

YANBU it’s absolutely grim. When are the new treatment works coming? There’s been hand wringing about this for decades now. Does anyone know if other European countries discharge raw sewage into rivers and seas?

I live on the coast, and I think, in fact, you only experienced one day that you knew about.

It would be a rare week when sewage was not going into the water somewhere near you every day.

Sometimes we get a satellite view of a sewage dump going into the Solent on an outgoing tide, coming back to the beaches on the next incoming tide, and just washing backwards and forwards for a week or so.

I would not paddle unless I was wearing wellingtons.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/mar/27/raw-sewage-hours-dumped-water-companies-england-last-year-data

I live in a coastal town dependent on seasonal tourism and I say yanbu @Neilsparentsarecomingfortea .

The only way things will change is under economic pressure.

This is awful! I don’t live in the UK any more and had no idea this was so bad! How sad that you have to look up an app to check if you can have a swim now. I have always been a beach lover and I am shocked that it has come to this.

This does feel extreme to me. There are plenty of things to do when on a seaside holiday in the UK other than go in the sea.

The Surfers Against Sewage app is great for giving real-time info on water quality and warnings. I say this as someone who lives at a UK seaside with several local beaches. This app really helps with peace of mind and making choices about which beach to visit when and when it's safe to swim, paddle, SUP etc.

Yes, and the beaches were cleaned up during the Blair years after the EU Waste Water directive came in.

A vast amount of public money was sent improving the water industry before privatisation, to modernise it and fatten it up for sale. It has been neglected since then, but us not, as the owners would have you believe, crumbling Victirusn pipes.

My car would be in a poor state if it was forty years old and I had pocketed all the money that should have gone on maintenance and renewal.

Is this yet another Brexit benefit, i.e. Britain no longer has to comply with effluent/discharge regulations? I know beaches in Europe can be bad also, but at least there are consequences like fines and such for breaches.

I haven't had a swim in the sea anywhere for years. And won't. I'd rather have a bucket of Epsom salts in my bath!

Vote with your feet and wallet. Go elsewhere and write to your MP. It will only change if people vote with their feet and bother to contact their MP.

We live in a small village near the river Severn. During recent flooding, the sewage on the roads/fields has been horrendous and I've not walked my dogs on the lower ground for weeks. You could smell it after the water had been sat on the fields for a few days. It won't be safe to walk these fields for weeks.

Where do you live, please?

I love to camp in areas where I can go swimming ( no dry robe, not yummy 😉)

It looks as if all my S Coast spots are risky

whilst the water will make you sick, there are plenty of other things to do whilst on holiday in Devon, so I wouldn’t cancel the holiday

For everyone saying ‘lots of other things to do’ - yes, but for many of us the joy of a seaside holiday is… the sea!

Thousands of us love swimming in the UK sea. Swimming in less buoyant, chlorinated cramped pools is an entirely different experience.

A bucket and spade day in the beach is cheap and keeps kids entertaining themselves for hours. And they get sea water on their hands all day long. ‘Attractions’ are fun but don’t fulfill the same play benefits as beach time.

When I lived in Scotland, one of our favourite walks was by Blackness Castle and the beach there was all furry balls of used tampons all the time.

I did complain to SEPA but Scottish Water is public, so it's not just the private companies, same in Wales.

Dude from SEPA said they knew it was an issue with Bo'ness water pumping station, apparently, if it has been down the coast in an area with more public reaction, it would have been sorted.

It is an absolute scandal and doesn’t seem to be improving. Does anyone have a handle on it in practice?