I'm teaming up with LBC to reveal state of Britain's rivers - we need to shock people into action, writes Feargal Sharkey

27 September 2024, 07:41

Since childhood, I've always had a love and affinity for fly fishing. Combined with the way I was brought up - if you saw a social injustice, it was demanded that you confronted and dealt with it - I can't ignore the state of our rivers and waterways.

That's why I'm teaming up with LBC's Nick Ferrari to audit the UK's rivers - to help British people understand the condition that they're in, so that we can work together to make things better.

Every Friday, I will travel with LBC to a new river. We began with a popular wild swimming site on the River Avon near Bristol, to test some of the UK’s best-known rivers for a whole range of bugs and carcinogens.

Our test yielded horrifying finds, including high levels of the E Coli bacteria, and elevated amounts of phosphate and nitrates.

Next week, we are going to Britain’s longest river - the River Severn.

I suspect the reaction to our audit from many will be one of some slight sadness and depression as well as a huge sense of loss because of the quality of these rivers, where they now are, and how they have been deserted and neglected.

But I also hope that people will be optimistic, because there can be light at the end of the tunnel - and there is a way to fix this.

I hope that our campaign will inspire people to take action themselves; that the public will see that the system we created and put our trust in has failed us as customers, and that it's absolutely devastated the environment.

People should be outraged, because the simple matter, no matter how you look at it, is that the system of regulation has completely and utterly failed both the customers and those citizens and the environment.

We now know that water regulator Ofwat is proposing to put up some water bills by 44% by 2029/30 and, as we know, every river in the country is polluted.

One of the largest sources of that pollution is the water industry.

If that is not a sign of failure and incompetence, I don't know how else you can define or describe it.

I'm encouraging people to take that outrage, take that anger - and turn it into action.