Newark MP Robert Jenrick rejects blue plaque sewage protests from Newark and Sherwood Extinction Rebellion

The MP for Newark Robert Jenrick had rejected claims made by an environmental group about his voting record.

This weekend Extinction Rebellion Newark and Sherwood began placing a series of fake blue plaques around the district, by waterways and iconic locations such as Southwell Minster.

The plaques read: “Robert Jenrick MP voted against reducing the dumping of raw sewage in our rivers. Demand change now."

With the blue plaque protests, the environmental group aim to highlight the health impacts that dumping raw sewage into seas and waterways can have on both humans and wildlife.

They also hope to shine the light on MPs — including Newark MP Robert Jenrick — who they say voted to block a law which would have forced water companies in the UK to clean up sewage before discharge properly.

In response Mr. Jenrick said: "This is completely untrue. No Government has done more to tackle the issue of storm overflow discharges.

"A growing population, Victorian infrastructure and an increase in extreme weather events has brought the frequency of discharges to an unacceptable level.

"It was a Conservative Government that first set out our expectation that water companies must take steps to significantly reduce storm overflows.

"In August 2022, we launched the Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan which requires water companies to make their largest ever investment into water infrastructure — a £56 billion capital investment by 2050.

"By 2035, water companies will have to improve all storm overflows discharging into or near every designated bathing water; and improve 75% of overflows discharging to high priority nature sites.

"By 2050, all storm overflows covered by our targets will have to be improved. We will review the targets in 2027. If it is possible to go further and faster while balancing the cost to consumers, we will not hesitate to do so.

"Complete separation of sewage and rainwater systems (which would stretch 2.5 times around the earth) would cost £350bn-£600bn and cause significant disruption. Most of the combined system runs under our towns and cities and would have to be dug up.

"Reducing discharges to zero in an average year at all inland waters using other options, such as building storage tanks (equivalent 40,000 Olympic swimming pools) would cost between £160bn- £240bn and would impact on consumer water bills.

"It was a Conservative government that directed water companies to initiate mandatory monitoring of storm overflows.

"We have increased the number of storm overflows monitored across the network from 5% in 2016 to almost 90% now monitored, and we will reach 100% cover by end of this year.

"We will also place duties directly on water companies to monitor the water quality impact up and downstream of all their assets. Powers in the landmark Environment Act, mean there are now more protections in place for our water environment than ever before.”