DIRTY BUSINESS - Mon Tue Wed 9pm ch 4 - TV PACE NO SPOILERS

[Blondeshavemorefun]

Channel 4’s new factual drama Dirty Business lays bare the criminal activity of Thames Water and other English water companies

As we saw with ITV’s Mr Bates vs The Post Office (2024), TV can be powerful and result in real change.

But whilst that awful miscarriage of justice has seen over £1.3billion paid in compensation, that’s nothing compared to the reparations owed to victims of England’s water companies – the target of Dirty Business.

Based on a decade-long investigation, factual drama Dirty Business follows real-life heroes Ash Smith (David Thewlis) and Peter Hammond (Jason Watkins) as they notice that their local patch of the River Windrush in The Cotswolds is becoming polluted.

But when the water company sends over inconsistent data in response to their inquiry, the unlikely detectives begin an investigation into this environmental scandal that has resulted from England’s water being owned and run by multi-million international corporations.

That investigative storyline – which is assisted by Thames Water whistleblower Mickey (Asim Chaudhry) - is emotionally undercut by the story of Julie (Posy Sterling) and Mark Preen (Tom McKay) whose eight-year-old daughter Heather dies just days after coming into contact with raw sewage whilst on holiday in Devon in 1999.

Who stars in Dirty Business?
David Thewlis as Ash Smith

After retiring as a police detective, Ash Smith began investigating water companies and regulators when he discovered that the river near his home was becoming polluted due to illegal sewage dumping by water companies. He subsequently founded Windrush Against Sewage Pollution (WASP) in 2018 – a grassroots group of activists which specialises in investigation into water companies and regulators.

Jason Watkins as Peter Hammond

Former Oxford Professor Peter Hammond proved invaluable in deciphering the data that the water companies eventually provided and was able to identify patterns of questionable behaviour on their part. As a result of his and Ash’s investigation, Pete has also become an activist and member of Windrush Against Sewage Pollution.
‘I’m very proud to have played someone who did such incredible work in raising awareness about how awful this situation is,’ says Jason Watkins of playing Peter in Dirty Business.

Asim Chaudhry as Mickey

Another hero, whistleblowing sewage plant worker Mickey partners with Ash (David Thewlis) and Peter (Jason Watkins) and begins to supply information on the critical failures of the water company that he works for: Thames Water.
The character of ‘Mickey’ is based on a real individual who provided a similar role in the investigation.

Posy Sterling as Julie Preen

Julie Preen and her husband Mark (Tom McKay) are wracked by grief when their eight-year-old daughter Heather dies after coming into contact with raw sewage and contracting E.coli.

Tom McKay as Mark Preen

The husband of Julie (Posy Sterling) and father of Suzanne and Heather, Mark’s world is torn apart when Heather dies of E.Coli poisoning.

What makes Dirty Business so powerful is that everything that you see in the factual drama is true. The water companies really are illegally dumping sewage into our rivers in England 1,600 times a day and facing no consequences for their actions.
This truly is one of the greatest corporate and regulatory scandals in our country’s history and hopefully TV shows like Dirty Business will result finally in some action being taken and water companies like Thames Water being held to account.

That’s just their marketing. Most of it is not Victorian. Just modern stuff they didn’t bother to replace and upkeep.

I have refused to pay it for a year. They think I owe them 1.5k. I don’t. They owe me £500.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/a-new-vision-for-water-white-paper/a-new-vision-for-water

I’ve just used the tool to check the sewerage outlet near my house that my DH found a few days ago while noseying around. It’s discharged sewerage 82 times in the last 3 months. Including almost 5hrs one day in December and 7.5hrs the very next day. Absolutely disgusting.

Those bastards needed a corporate manslaughter charge for the death they caused. £860k wage is a fucking joke. No one deserves that amount of money for any sort of job let alone the one she was supposedly doing. She should be hanging her head in shame but she absolutely wont be 😡

I'm only up to episode 2 so far.

I've just finished watching this. I knew Thames Water were horrific, but the scale of it all is truly shocking. There are so many people complicit in this, and it needs to be known. How on earth we get to hold people to account, I don't know.

This has been installed on the south bank, it was getting a lot of attention when I passed it yesterday.

https://www.newsflare.com/video/841751/provocative-fountain-of-filth-installation-by-channel-4-highlights-uk-sewage-crisis-on-londons-south-bank

I've signed the surfers against sewage petition and also this one:

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/757426

That in itself is criminal. A fair deal for customers and investors. Excuse me?!

ITS OUR WATER!

Honestly this gov needs to grow a pair. It’s well within environmental law that the fines are unlimited. So they should be, and seize the whole lot. The assets, the cash in bank, the shares, dissolve the whole thing.

It’s absolutely horrific. How are these people allowed to get away with this?
That poor young girl who died.

I think if possible every so often if posters can bump this thread to get it regularly into active.

Anyone else think the naming the program Dirty Business didn’t help? Wonder if it had been called Dirty Water and not been on channel 4 it may have got more traction. Who knows but I’m disappointed it hasn’t reached post office traction.

@NewAgeNewMe do you think if it was on ITV like Mr Bates was, it would have got better traction?

Possibly, but I think it’s such a shame that it hasn’t. It’s a national disgrace and the powers at be seem not to give a shit (not an intended pun).

Fergal Sharkey has been on tv for a few years now talking about this scandal. I was only aware of it because of him.

Have you been living under a rock? It's been going on for years.
It makes me so cross that someone living in Dawlish like @PrimalScreaming has only just started following SAS. What does it take for people to wake up to the damage water companies are doing to our health and the planet?
I live on the coast in South East Cornwall and for years the number of sewerage discharges have been far too numerous to count

I've known about some of Thames Water's dodgy dealings for a while, borrowing money to pay dividends to shareholders. And I see endless examples of leaks and burst mains supplies flooding the streets in London because of their poor maintenance. I wasn't that aware of the sewage spills elsewhere, and I had no idea about how inspections had been cancelled and how the water companies could get away with doing nothing about sewage flowing into rivers and over beaches.
I agree that Dirty Water would have been a better title than Dirty Business and I really hope that this gets the attention it deserves.

Another one joining the thread after watching the programme open mouthed and scandalised at the absolute contemptuous bullshit that the environment agency and the water companies were coming out with to justify their pollution of our water. I’m going to send that letter to my MP. I’m livid.

Shamelessly bumping this date. A march in March? How apt.

Thanks for the public shaming @hillyholman I didn't realise I was the enemy.

I have just finished watching the whole thing. I don’t know what to say, I’m furious and feel so powerless. So many things came out of it that I didn’t know like the flipping of the owners every few years so no investment.

I was also was under the impression that the whole of our sewage system is antiquated / Victorian and that’s why it hasn’t been replaced as too costly but to learn only 12% is and prior to privatisation it was maintained I’m just speechless.

I will urge everyone I know to watch - it should be a bigger scandal than the post office one.

Want to try to keep this in active if possible.

Thinking about this and how much the Environment Agency are almost as culpable as the water companies in the way they have turned a blind eye.

So many questions around this.

I wonder if the documentary has powered the recent surge of support for the Greens…

This is the Surfers Against Sewage petition:
you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/end-the-profit-driven-sewage-pollution-scandal-1?source=web_share_api&utm_medium=socialshare&utm_source=web_share_api&share=1dcb1dcf-3d38-43b3-827b-adbd64d8aa72

Thanks for the text upthread, I'm going to write to my MP as well.

Lets all work together to raise awareness of this issue. Mumsnet is a powerful collabarative! Surfers Against Sewage need just over anither 8000 signatures!

Yes, it was all the lies that got me. I thought the EA was supposed to be the good guys but they’re the same. All anyone cares about is money

So lets show that WE care! Lets use that anger and get on our Socials, go into our communities, our workplaces, our universities and colleges, our groups etc and raise awareness!