Thames Water says it "wants to see waterways thrive" following mass protests in London against river and sea pollution.

Oxfordshire activists joined thousands of demonstrators in London on Sunday, November 3, wearing blue to “flood the streets” of the city for the March for Clean Water organised by charity River Action.

More than 130 environmental and water organisations supported the one-off event which called on the government to enforce water regulation laws, reform regulator Ofwat, and for private water companies to pay for any damage caused.

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Oxfordshire's Steve Dawe, who attended the event, said: “I marched because it is a national scandal that every watercourse in England is polluted.

“Nowhere is really safe for wild swimming; our rivers also discharge pollution into the neighbouring seas. This must be stopped for human health and the ecology of rivers, streams and seas.”

Paddleboarders in the county took to Oxford’s waterways to protest local pollution, too.

Paddleboarders protesting Thames Water in Oxford. (Image: Rose Marsh)

Protester Rose Stevens said: “We always used to swim at the end of a paddle, but the idea feels pretty grim now the Environment Agency is talking about harmful bacteria floating around in there.”

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Activists have also launched a petition to take Thames Water back into public ownership through We Own It, which has already received more than 24,000 signatures.

A Thames Water spokesperson said: “We have an ambitious business plan for the next five years that proposes a total spend of £23.4 billion to help us meet our customers’ priorities.”

This includes providing safe, high-quality drinking water to their 16million person client base, ensuring supply security, delivering environmental improvements, and building system resilience.

The spokesperson added: “We know how much people enjoy and appreciate rivers, and we are committed to seeing waterways thrive. We have clear and deliverable plans to upgrade 250 of our sites across the region, to increase treatment capacity and reduce the number of storm discharges including at our Witney and Oxford sewage treatment works.

“As infrastructure ages and demand on it increases, more investment is needed across the entire sector. That’s why we’ve asked for increased investment in the next regulatory cycle between 2025-2030.”

More than 8,000 people signed up to attend the march to protest these issues, led by nature broadcaster Chris Packham.

The southeast water company, which is struggling financially, involved in legal disputes and repeatedly fined by Ofwat, has been responsible for dumping sewage spills into the River Thames for more than 6,500 hours in the past year, nearly quadruple the pollution of the year before.

There have also been repeated issues with the company on a smaller scale in Oxfordshire, such as water outages, road closures, sewage leaks onto people’s land, and extreme river pollution.

Last year, raw sewage was discharged for more than 3.6million hours into rivers and seas by England’s water companies, according to the Environment Agency, nominally due to storm overflow meant to be used in extreme weather.

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