H2 Owned
England is the only country in the world where the entire population is served by privatised water companies. ‘You could be a H2 owner’ declared a 1989 TV advertising campaign, issued by the Conservative Government.
Margaret Thatcher was on a roll, transforming the UK into a shareholder democracy. Water moved into the private sector. On the first day of trading investors gained a 40% profit. Since 1989 no new infrastructure has been built. Meanwhile, shareholders have pocketed £72bn in dividends. This is 50% of the total sum spent on maintenance between 1991 and 2019.
Fast-forward to today and the privatisation of water has proved to be a disaster for consumers and the environment. The UK population has grown by 11 million since 1989 but the sewers are at the same capacity. Lack of investment has seen water companies regularly leaking sewage into our rivers and seas. Spills were recorded more than 1000 times a day in 2021. Today 100% of UK rivers are polluted above the legal limit. In 2020 the UK ranked the lowest in Europe for water quality. This was the last time it was included in the report before leaving the EU. The story of our water sell-off has been dubbed as a ‘sewage scandal’ with serious impacts on human health and eco-systems. Water pollution has become the embodiment of greed and corruption, now visible in our once clear waters.
In 2019 Surfers Against Sewage launched the ‘Safer Seas and Rivers Service’ app, tracking sewage pollution in our seas. The beaches featured in this series had a live ‘Sewage Pollution Alert’ when I visited. I also photographed river activities. Rivers are not included in these alerts as all are considered polluted. This project is a visual representation of the dire state of UK waters today. I used paints and other substances to illustrate the contamination of our waterways.
Top images; Gylly Beach, Falmouth, 23rd August 2022
Surfing in St Agnes, 3rd November 2022 and Bigbury Beach, 5th September 2022.
Children play in the River Dart, August 2022 and March 2022
