An event next week will examine concerns about sewage being pumped into the river near Bury for hundreds of hours per year
Dan Ross with a jar of water and treatment plant bio-beads taken from the River Irwell
A river near Bury has been branded one of the country’s ‘worst sewage dumping grounds’ by campaigners.
Next week, a public meeting will be held by Bury Trades Council about local rivers, the privatised water industry, infrastructure and sewage.
The group claim the combined sewer overflow at Sion Street in Radcliffe was responsible for more sewage spills than any other location on the River Irwell in 2023.
It is claimed that at nearly 2,200 hours, this was the equivalent of three months’ of continuous sewage spills.
United Utilities, who manage water and sewer infrastructure in the region, said that the situation is improving on river emissions and they had invested more than £400m between 2020 and 2025 across the Irwell catchment.
They said that at Sion Street, spills reduced to 844 hours in 2024, compared to the 2023 data that the trade council had quoted.
Combined sewage overflows mix toilet sewage with rainwater, which is discharged into rivers.
The campaigners said this harms wildlife in rivers and coastal environments, including fish and shellfish, along with posing threats to humans. Dan Ross, from the trades council, will chair the meeting.
He said: “Since 1989, the provision of our fresh drinking water and disposal of sewage has been in the hands of private water companies like United Utilities.
An overflow pipe at United Utilities’ Sion Street processing plant in Radcliffe
“We consider that these companies pay mere lip-service to their role in ‘serving’ the public.
“This is because they have diverted money which should have improved our water supply, sewers and rivers into the pockets of their shareholders.
“Sewage that should have been treated is quietly dumped in to our rivers, while the monitoring body, the Environment Agency, effectively looks the other way.
“We believe the entire situation is intolerable, and completely unnecessary.”
Bury Trades Council, which brings together local trade unions to campaign on issues, is holding the meeting on Thursday, June 26, at Prestwich Methodist Church, 405 Bury New Road, at 7.15pm.
Speakers will include Dr Morag Rose from the Our Irwell group, environmental campaigner Mike Duddy and Green Party councillor Hannah Spencer.
United Utilities said they have invested £110m to upgrade Bolton waste water treatment works, increasing the capacity of the works by 20 per cent and reduce spills from storm overflows.
Similarly in Bury, £50m has been spent upgrading waste water treatment so it can treat more sewage and the nearby sewer network will get additional storage capacity.
They said that along with the investment at Bolton, this will improve 40km of the River Irwell.
A United Utilities spokesperson said: “Our teams have been working extremely hard to make the improvements that people want to see benefit their local rivers, watercourses and bathing waters. In 2024 this resulted in a 46 per cent reduction in spill duration across Greater Manchester, with the number of spills from storm overflows also falling by 32 per cent.
“Between 2020-2025 we invested £400m across the Irwell catchment.
“This includes £160m at Bolton and Bury wastewater treatments works, directly benefiting the water quality and improving the ecological status of our watercourses.
“As members of the Irwell Catchment Partnership and the River Tame Working Group, we continue to work in partnership to manage catchment issues, including fly tipping, pollution and habitat improvements, and our river rangers work across the catchment to help improve the environment by forging closer links with the local community.
“We are now embarking on the largest ever investment programme in our infrastructure that will see the biggest overhaul of the region’s wastewater network in a century.”