A statement from Chief Executive in response to the publication of data on sewage discharge from storm overflows in England:

The latest figures on sewage discharges mean another distressing news day for our rivers and seas. As shown in our recent State of Our Rivers Report, most English rivers fail to reach good ecological health standards and storm overflows contribute to at least 11% of total failures – that is the real consequence of the shocking numbers in today’s gory data.

This is just one source of pollution we can identify and rectify - and we must - because this effluent is making our rivers and our people sick.

We must make good decisions to solve this problem, looking for integrated solutions that tackle the sewage problem along with other sources of pollution, and deliver more benefits to society too. That means working with nature as much as possible and not relying exclusively on expensive, carbon-hungry measures which transfer a large cost onto customers.

The water industry has pledged £10.1bn in England over the next five years to tackle this problem alone. Now we desperately need government to play their part and approve that spending, to hold water companies to account, and to ensure that decisions are made for long-term environmental and societal benefit - sticking plaster solutions for short term gains are not the right approach. 