UK Nature and Environment

A “people’s commission” on the future of the water industry will travel across England and Wales taking evidence from the public and environmental campaign groups fighting sewage pollution.

Academics and environmental campaigners who were central to exposing the routine dumping of raw sewage into rivers by water companies have set up the inquiry to rival the government-established independent commission.

Members include the former Undertones frontman and campaigner Feargal Sharkey, Becky Malby, who was responsible for a stretch of the River Wharfe in Ilkley becoming the first to be given bathing water status, Kate Bayliss, an academic who has investigated how private equity has taken over large parts of English water firms, and Ewan McGaughey, a professor of law at King’s College London.