Sewage poured into waterways thousands of time in past year

TANDRIDGE WAS WORST AFFECTED IN COUNTY

- By DAVID DUBAS-FISHER

SEWAGE was emptied into Surrey's waterways thousands of times last year and the worst offending outlet was in Tandridge.

There were a total of 2,666 sewage spills into rivers and streams in the county during 2024, an average of 17 a day.

That is up from 2,148 spills in 2023, according to figures from the Rivers Trust.

The spills ran for a combined total of 31,000 hours (up from over 23,000 a year earlier), which works out as the equivalent of around three-and-a-half years non-stop.

The country's sewage network empties both treated sewage and overflows of untreated sewage mixed with stormwater into rivers and waterways.

The vast majority of these dumping points are monitored throughout the year with the number of spills and the duration of the spills reported annually.

There were 563,730 spills across England and Wales in 2024.

It works out at an average of 1,544 a day. That is down from 1,588 per day in 2023.

Last year's spills ran for a combined total of 4.55 million hours the equivalent of a tap running constantly for 520 years.

Lingfield was the most active spiller in our county.