XR Ashdown Forest travelled to the Splashpoint in Seaford on Saturday 28th January to lend support to their local Dirty Water Campaign, a well-coordinated rally of over 100 people gathered together to protest the raw sewage discharged on the beaches of Seaford by Southern Water.
A speaker reminded protesters that sewage was dumped just a few metres from where we all stood. “If that was the edge of a swimming pool, it would not be acceptable – but somehow the water companies think they can get away with it because it is the beach”, she said to cheers from the crowd.
Ruth Rose pulled back the curtains to unveil the blue plaque on the seafront, naming and shaming Maria Caulfield MP for being among the many Tory MPs who did not sign an amendment to the Environment Bill to put a legal duty on water companies to reduce the harm caused by sewage discharges. More speeches followed, including one by an AFXR member on plastic pollution, until the whole crowd processed noisily to Maria Caulfield’s office in West Quay in Newhaven.
The accompaniment of a dozen of the XR drummers from Brighton and beyond meant that nobody could ignore this protest for the duration of the march. Now we need action, although the government has yet to even update its blog on the matter – and ‘monitoring’ is not the same as ‘stopping’ it happen.