Undertones singer Feargal Sharkey says Cornwall has 'led the charge' on sewage fight

Undertones frontman turned environmental campaigner Feargal Sharkey brought his battle to stop the pollution of the country's rivers and seas to Cornwall today (Thursday, June 13). The former frontman said the Duchy had "led the charge" in raising awareness about pollution spills and sewage dumping.

However, a Conservative Party spokesperson accused the Teenage Kicks singer of twisting the facts "to fit his warped narrative" during his tour of Cornwall.

He may have once sang Here Comes The Summer, but it was a horribly rainy day when Mr Sharkey joined the Truro and Falmouth constituency's Labour candidate Jayne Kirkham at Gyllyngvase beach in Falmouth. In fact, he met campaigners and supporters in the sort of conditions which have led to spills caused by an overflow pipe to the west of the beach.

The former singer who had a No 1 hit single with A Good Heart took up his clean water activism as a keen fly fisherman who had seen the impact of sewage on some of his favourite river haunts. He visited Falmouth as part of his ‘Stop the S*** Show’ nationwide tour to highlight the issue of pollution in Britain's waterways.

Read next: Cornwall Council to buy 50 houses for homeless families

Read next: Major election poll predicts total Tory wipeout in Cornwall

Starting his Cornish tour in Looe, Mr Sharkey - the president of Socialist Environment and Resources Association (SERA), Labour’s environment campaign - met Ms Kirkham, before travelling to meet fellow environmental campaigners Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) and Perran Moon, the Labour Party MP candidate in Camborne and Redruth at Seiners Bar, next to Perranporth beach.

He also met Noah Law, St Austell and Newquay's Labour candidate, at Par beach. In Falmouth, he also chatted to local anti-sewage campaigners, sea swimmers and traditional Fal oyster fisherman Chris Ranger, who is losing as much as 80 per cent of his catch due to concerns over the local water quality.

Get the best stories and latest news delivered to your inbox every day. Choose what you want here.

After signing an Undertones record belonging to Mr Ranger, hugging supporters and being presented with a T-shirt saying 'S*** Free Sea!' he happily answered a range of questions from the assembled media.

We asked, despite all of his campaigning, pressure on government and water companies by groups like SAS, protest by politicians and everyday people who use our beaches and rivers, still nothing seems to be done to stop the problem, so when are we going to get 'clean age kicks'?

He said I'd fallen foul of the bad pun levy and asked me to make a donation to a charity called Wild Fish, of which he is vice-president. "I'm really pleased you mentioned Surfers Against Sewage, particularly here in Cornwall - they were blazing a trail on this before people like me ever knew there was a trail to be blazed. I've got huge, huge admiration and respect for people like Surfers Against Sewage. Cornwall in many ways had led the charge on all of this.

"When are we going to get change? We have an incumbent MP that three years ago voted for the first time to allow water companies to carry on legally dumping sewage for another 25 years. That's why you've not seen change because sitting behind it has been an utter lack of political oversight and nothing but corporate greed.

"We could have fixed this a long long time ago. All it needed was a government that intervened and did its job. That's why you've not had change. We have the chance to change the future of the water industry and this country come July 4."

He's incredibly passionate about the issue. Has he ever considered standing for Parliament?

"Here's the thing, I just wanted to go fishing and I still just want to go fishing. We can change this in the next three weeks and after that I will leave you all alone, and look forward to going fishing and gently going back to obscurity, leaving the good people of Cornwall to a peaceful and prosperous future.

"All I've actually done is take my career as a musician - I've always liked the idea of there's a stage, a microphone and an audience - and helped to raise awareness of people like Surfers Against Sewage and wild swimmers in Falmouth, people who have been out there doing this and drawing attention to it. They're the ones who should be getting all the praise. This always was and always will be about people power. The wild swimmers of Falmouth have proved - when that small mice squeaks it can become a lion's roar."

Why is he supporting Labour?

"The Conservatives have known about this issue for the last 12 years. They were taken to the European Court of Justice which found the Conservative government guilty of breaking the law by allowing water companies to dump sewage.

"I watched Keir Starmer at his conference speech last year - the first person at that level to mention the word 'sewage' and rivers, and the day after this election was announced he mentioned sewage and rivers again. I genuinely feel the Labour Party is the only party right now that is really going to start holding these companies to account, start rebuilding a regulatory system and provides a system that stops polluting our environment, that delivers clean water at a price we can afford and provides an environment where we can do a really simple thing - take our kids to the beach and not have to sit there thinking can I allow my kids to paddle here."

Mr Sharkey added: "If I had my way we'd completely review root and branch the whole regulatory system and rebuild it so that's actually functioning and does its job by holding the whole of these water companies to account. If that means jail sentences for companies that openly and blatantly flout the law, then so be it."

Alluding to the recent incident in Brixham when the parasite cryptosporidium entered the water network, Mr Sharkey added: "[South West Water] has a chief executive who runs a company that just managed to poison a whole village in the Westcountry and put one teenage child in hospital and yet gets rewarded with a 58 per cent increase in their salary; a water company that has just applied to increase its water prices by 48 per cent, that has just announced a new chairman who will be paid £250,000 a year for chairing six meetings.

"It needs to change, it's out of control, it needs to be brought to heel and it needs to start delivering not only for the people of Cornwall but for the people of England and for the future of our children."

Of the Cornish supporters and protesters who had turned up to support him, Mr Sharkey said: "They're the clever ones - it is the people like the swimmers on these beaches that have driven this up the agenda. I've seen that 58 per cent of voters have said that the sewage scandal will change how they vote in three weeks' time."

Water companies use combined sewage overflow pipes (CSOs) - which combine surface run-off with household sewage - to discharge waste water when the sewerage system becomes overloaded in heavy rain, leading to pollution incidents. While Gyllyngvase is a Blue Flag beach, many Blue Flag beaches have CSOs nearby. In 2022 Gyllyngvase beach had 70 sewage alerts, according to SAS. On the north coast, in 2023 sewage polluted Portreath beach for 120 times, lasting 2,180 hours.

If her party gets into power, Ms Kirkham said: "We need to stop raw sewage being dumped into our waters. The next Labour government will introduce a legally binding target to end 90 per cent of sewage discharges by 2030 and stronger sanctions and fines for bosses and companies who fail to do so. Our beaches and rivers in Cornwall are vital for our health, ecosystems and economy."

A Conservative Party spokesperson responded to Mr Sharkey's comments made during his Cornish visit: “Feargal Sharkey’s comments are nothing more than a shameful political attack by a Labour activist determined to twist the facts to fit his warped narrative.

“It is simply a complete lie to say that any Conservative MPs voted to allow water companies to carry on legally dumping sewage. In reality, the Conservatives introduced mandatory monitoring, while the last Labour government introduced self-monitoring so water companies could mark their own homework, with only seven per cent of sewage overflows being monitored. The Labour Party have no credible plan to reduce the use of storm overflows and sewage in our rivers, promising to only give Ofwat the powers we have already given them in the Environment Act.

“Meanwhile, the Conservative government have increased monitoring of sewage overflows to 100 per cent, are banning bonuses for bosses of water companies that have committed serious criminal breaches and are quadrupling water company inspections. The choice could not be clearer, stick with the plan under the Conservatives or go back to square one with Labour.”

We asked South West Water for a response to Mr Sharkey's comments. A spokesperson for the company said: "South West Water is working around the clock to restore supply to the remaining customers and businesses of Brixham, Upper Brixham and Kingswear still affected. We understand how frustrating this is and we apologise fully for the disruption caused.

“Restoring supply has been a major undertaking and our teams are working night and day. We continue to provide support to those affected, including compensation payments.

“Chief executive Susan Davy has voluntarily declined her bonus for the second year running. The separate long term award she has received relates to her work in 2021 and has been reinvested immediately into the company.”