Hayling Sewage Watch an Update
Hayling
Island has had a blue flag beach for over 30 years and
the local council has never issued sewage
pollution warnings when Southern Water dumps raw
untreated human excrement onto our sea just 1km away
from our blue flag beach. Our beach is a UK hotspot for
watersports and massive participation of wild swimming
year round including those where GP's have prescribed
sea swimming for patient mental health.
Hayling Sewage Watch (HSW) helped to successfully
force electoral change on Hayling island. All
candidates were asked by HSW if they would take a motion
to Havant Council after the election and get electronic
sewage pollution warning signs installed on our beaches.
The conservative candidates would not support this
initiative, one said there was not even a problem and
the other said he could not take this to the local
conservative association. HSW (5K+ members) informed
them they would not get elected and worked tirelessly to
ensure our wards returned non-conservative councillors.
To the credit of the duly elected minority reds/yellows
they quickly put a motion to council and received
unanimous support even from the blues. But because the
electronic signs were not the idea of the majority blues
they are dragging their heels in order to salvage some
political qudos and take the higher ground.
Citizens have now secured a respected international
supplier of outdoor digital displays to help fund a
pilot scheme to give bathers/other water users
automatically updating real time
sewage pollution warning signs on
Haylings Blue Flag beach. We are now seeking planning
permission for the sign which we believe is a UK first
using this technology! We expect to switch on this
project before the 2024 bathing season starts on May
15th 2024. We are looking also to proliferate this
approach across Southern Water's patch and UK wide
Please let me know if you might be interested in
covering this story when the sign goes live and I
will keep you updated on this citizen success story against
a local authority who have failed so far to act in the
best interests of hundreds of thousands of water users
on a blue flag beach.
Hayling Sewage Watch 1st
October