"Truly Shocking" Analysis Shows National Parks Disproportionately Impacted By Sewage Spills

Untreated sewage was spilled into the UK’s National Parks 95 times each day last year in what have been called "truly shocking" findings.

Analysis by PoliticsHome of 540 sewage outfalls inside or on the border of England and Wales’ 13 National Parks found that untreated sewage was released nearly 35,000 times last year, leaking nearly 400,000 hours worth of toxic effluent into protected natural spaces.

The findings also show that National Parks were more likely per capita to be subject to sewage dumping than the rest of the country.

Despite making up just 0.67 per cent of the English and Welsh population, the protected environmental spaces made up 6 per cent of the total number of sewage spills in the nations — nine times more than its expected proportion of spills.

Old infrastructure mixed with a high tourist population in the areas can leave National Parks more at risk of sewage spills.

Nationwide, raw sewage was discharged into waterways for 3.6m hours in 2023 by England’s privatised water firms, more than double the figure in 2022.

The worst affected National Park was Snowdonia, Wales, where 73 operating outfalls released untreated sewage 5,925 times for a total of 65,479 hours.

It was followed by Dartmoor, in the south of England, which recorded 4,716 spills for 59,970 hours.

In third were two parks: the Yorkshire Dales and the South Downs. The former recorded the third highest number of spills at 3,689 while the latter recorded a higher amount of sewage being released in its spills, with 50,515,9 hours of sewage being released.

The outfall that released the most sewage in the country was at Lavant Wastewater Treatment Works, North of Chichester in the South Downs. It released untreated sewage 286 times for a total of