Undertones frontman and pollution campaigner, Feargal Sharkey, has blasted the Government’s third ‘confused’ announcement in five years that it plans to ban wet wipes.
The Derry man highlighted the lack of action from the government and regulators to deal with ongoing sewage pollution across the UK.
He told Kate Garraway on Good Morning Britain: “I’m afraid the government’s whole statement is incredibly muddled and confused and I think that’s on their part.
Read more: People 'getting ill' after swimming at NI beaches, say ocean activists
“For example the wet wipes announcement. This is the third time they’ve made that announcement in the last five years.
“If you were gonna do it, you would have done it five years ago and when it comes to the unlimited fines they were talking about.
“Before Christmas that was a maximum of £250 million, in January the chairman of the Enviroment Agency referred to that as crazy - I was in the room when he said it.
“In February, the Secretary of State said it was disproporionate and four weeks later we’ve gone from £250 million being crazy and disproportionate to unlimited.
“But when you look back at it, the regulator Ofwat, for 30 years has had the power to fine water companies up to 10% of their turnover per year for breaching the regulations.”
Kate asked if they’d “ever done it”.
Feargal added: “Once in 30 years.”
Richard Madeley asked why he thought that was the case. Feargal said: “For me it’s a combination of... political indifference and political decisions about the price of water and the regulators quite simply not having the wherewithall, ability, desire or ambition. They’ve known about this problem for decades.
“Just to remind everybody, the UK Government was taken to court by the European Commission in 2012 and found guilty of breaking the regulations. They’ve known about this for a very long time.”
He highlighted how there have been 1,500 pollution incidents on blue flag beaches across the UK.
Feargal added on Twitter: “And as for the £1.6bn investment? Does that now replace the £3.1bn announced last year or the £2.7bn announced before that or the £12bn announced before that? I could go on…”
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