Marine Conservation Society joins our case against sewage dumping

Marine Conservation Society is at the forefront of tackling the ocean emergency and standing up for coastal communities impacted by climate change and pollution.

Sewage spills from storm overflows are threatening human health, biodiverse marine life and the fishing industry. We believe that taking legal action now is vital to ensuring English coastal waters are safeguarded for generations to come.

This is why Good Law Project is supporting co-claimants Marine Conservation Society, Richard Haward’s Oysters and surfer and activist, Hugo Tagholm, as they take this case forward to compel the Government to rewrite its Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan. 

In its current form, the Government’s plan gives water companies until 2050 to take action on sewage discharges from storm overflows. But we believe that allowing this environmental vandalism to continue for decades to come is dangerous and unlawful.

The scope of the plan also fails to include the hundreds of coastal and estuarine storm overflows responsible for polluting our seas and shorelines. 

The claim has now been filed and the next step is to take this issue to the courts to compel the Government to impose much tougher deadlines on water companies and expand its plan to specifically address sewage spillages into coastal waters.

Good Law Project recently forced the Government to go back to the drawing board on its inadequate Net Zero strategy. With this case, we hope to make the Government concede again. But we need your help.

Please join us in our campaign to protect our shorelines and coastal waters for generations to come by supporting this legal challenge, if you are able to.

You can read our Statement of Facts and Grounds in full here.