THOUSANDS of people flooded the streets of London yesterday to demand that the government stick to its promise to clean up Britain’s waters.

More than 130 organisations united to organise the rally after years of untreated sewage, agricultural run-off and corporate negligence has pushed the nation’s rivers, seas and lakes to ecological breaking point.

GMB union, the Wildlife Trust, and Surfers Against Sewage were among those that joined the protest organised by River Action.

A sea of protesters clad in blue marched from the Albert Embankment to Parliament Square to urge the Labour government to step up.

In its election manifesto, the party pledged to make sure water companies clean up their toxic filth.

Since its election win, Labour has introduced the Water (Special Measures) Bill, which bans bonuses for water bosses who fail to protect the environment and grants regulators the power to impose automatic fines.

But campaigners argue that the party has overlooked root issues such as the chronic lack of regulatory enforcement that has allowed polluters to poison Britain’s waterways. They are calling for urgent reform and more funding.

Surfers Against Sewage chief Giles Bristow warned that a clause in the new Bill appears to allow for a bailout for privatised companies in the event that one of them becomes insolvent.

He said: “It should not be there. We have paid once already for environmental improvement. It shouldn't be up to us now to rebail out the water companies.”

The government had already used taxpayers’ cash to clear its debts when the industry was privatised in 1989 and firms used projected future profits to borrow £53 billion in the years since.

Instead of being directed towards upgrades for crumbling infrastructure, much of which dates back to the Victorian era, the funds were paid out to shareholders, who have pocketed £72bn in dividends.

Meanwhile the companies racked up over £65bn in debts.

In July, the water regulator Ofwat announced that customer bills will rise by £19 a year over the next five years to meet the costs of an upgrade to infrastructure to tackle sewage and leaky pipes.

Angela Jones, from Save the Wye, said the regulators are “totally letting us down.” She said: “As consumers, we wouldn't mind if we were paying for the infrastructure and it was getting improved — but it’s not: it’s actually an insult to us.”

The Environment Agency reported that sewage spilt into England's waterways doubled to more than 3.6 million hours in 2023 compared with the year before.

Labour announced that a new water commission will undertake a root-and-branch review into the “broken” sector last month.

While welcoming the commission, River Action chief Charles Watson flagged concerns about the small print.

“It keeps referencing the need for economic growth,” he said “Our polluted rivers do not need economic growth: they need environmental protection.”

He also noted a significant absence in the government’s plans.

“Agriculture is as big a pollution as sewage,” he said. “And in both the Water (Special Measures) Bill and in the announcement of the commission to review our waters, there was not one mention of agriculture.”

Mr Watson said the reason that rivers are so polluted is because environmental protection has collapsed due to austerity and the fact that budgets for organisations such as the Environment Agency were cut to the bone to the extent that its officers could not do their jobs.

In its Budget last week, Labour revealed that it won’t restore funding to the department under which the regulator operates.

Instead, it will impose a 1.9 per cent real-terms cut to day-to-day spending. 

Cliff Roney, London region branch secretary for GMB, which represents many workers in the industry, attended the protest with his grandsons.

He said: “Renationalisation, I firmly believe, is the only way forward to get this industry back to where it needs to be. It’s been decimated since it was privatised. 

“The fat cats have stripped in excess of £60bn out of the industry. The infrastructure’s falling to pieces. We’ve got to get it back.”

Cat Hobbs, founder of We Own It, said the way to do that is to start with prolific offender Thames Water, with the government using special administration powers to bring it into public ownership both on the basis of financial unsustainability and the fact that the firm is not fulfilling its statutory duties. 

She said doing so would enable workers and environmental groups to be on the board, “holding the company to account, making sure that it delivers for the public, instead of this completely unaccountable situation where the only people that Thames Water cares about are its shareholders — and they are scattered in Kuwait, China, Australia.”

Ms Hobbs highlighted that 90 per cent of the world runs water in public ownership.

“We’re really choosing a very strange way to run water,” she said.

“The idea was that we would have some kind of market. But there isn't a market in water, right? Water is a natural monopoly. There’s one set of pipes. When you turn the tap on, you don't get any choice about which company you're getting your water from.

“That means that we as consumers, as households, as the public: they have us over a barrel.”