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New Forest-based river campaigner and founder of River Action, Charles Watson, told the Echo urgent and large investment is needed to help the situation at Harbour. He said that harbours along the south coast, including , do not have the same extreme combination of a big population and huge rivers emptying into them as in Christchurch. “In Christchurch, we have these two huge rivers the Stour and Avon – both of which have major catchments that drain into the river,” the campaigner said.
“And in Bournemouth, all the sewage of Bournemouth goes into wastewater treatment works out into the back door of Bournemouth. “Effectively, they’re all located in the Stour, and when they get overwhelmed and discharge all sewage, that all goes into the Stour which goes into Christchurch Harbour.” According to the Environment Agency’s most recent data published in 2023, there were 3,304 hours of sewage spills into the River Stour.
In the River Avon, that was 2,237 hours and 992 spills that took place in Christchurch from its sewage works. “I grew up around here and decades ago I remember pristine, beautiful rivers teaming with wildlife, diverse ecosystems,” Charles said. “But both of them are now horrifically polluted with large quantities of sewage.
” He added: “This is just within a 20-mile radius of the harbour mouth. There’s much more coming down from further up the catchment. “This huge volume of sewage being literally dumped into these rivers has horrible consequences not specifically to those rivers, but to the harbour.
“It is absolutely terrible for the harbour because it you can't really get rid of it; there is the narrow entrance/exit of Mudeford where there is only two hours of exit flow and four hours of entry flow because of the way the tide works.” Charles was at a public meeting attended by around 350 residents on Thursday evening, November 29, where he urged people to sign a petition on the council’s website calling for BCP Council to take urgent action. The event was organised by Christchurch Harbour & Marine Society (CH&MS) which has said phosphate and nitrate levels are “off the scale” in Christchurch Harbour and there is “no protection in place”.
Phosphates cause algae to grow which reduces oxygen in the water and can kill plants and animals. Society chairman Martin Stewart said: “We don’t inherit this planet from our parents, we borrow it from our kids." Charles said: “We must see massive, accelerated investments to bring these dilapidated pieces of vital public infrastructure up to a level where they're fit for purpose, to deal with what the demand that's been put on them.
“At the moment that is not the case, which is why we've got 6,533 hours combined hours of sewage going into Christchurch Harbour.” The petition can be viewed here: https://democracy.bcpcouncil.
gov.uk/mgEPetitionListDisplay.aspx.
