"Dirty Business" Shows a National Scandal — Cranleigh and Alfold Are Living It

“Dirty Business” Shows a National Scandal — Cranleigh and Alfold Are Living It

Channel 4's “Dirty Business” exposes the shocking reality of sewage pollution, weak regulation and years of underinvestment by privatised water companies. For many viewers, it is eye-opening.

For residents in Cranleigh and Alfold, it is nothing new.

We have clear evidence of hydraulic overload in our sewerage network. Residents have endured sewage backing up into homes, raw sewage in gardens, and toilets that cannot be flushed during heavy rain. Thousands of hours of raw sewage have been discharged into Cranleigh Waters — and even those figures likely underestimate the true scale of the problem due to monitoring failures.

This is not theoretical. It is lived experience.

Liz Townsend's Intervention on the 70-Home Alfold Application

On 18 February, as Waverley’s Planning Portfolio Holder, Liz made an unprecedented intervention at Planning Committee on an application for 70 homes in Alfold.

This was not routine. It went to the heart of an infrastructure crisis our communities have faced for years.

The applicant failed to demonstrate adequate foul drainage capacity, did not provide sufficient hydraulic modelling, and failed to show that water quality would not deteriorate further. Under the National Planning Policy Framework and our Local Plan, development must not increase flood risk or pollution and must be supported by adequate infrastructure. Where credible evidence of harm exists, refusal is justified.

Approving more homes without fixing the sewerage network would simply compound an existing injustice.

A Decade of Campaigning — and the Need for Reform

Liz has campaigned on this issue for over ten years. In 2016 she met then Environment Secretary Andrea Leadsom, alongside the Environment Agency Executive Director Harvey Bradshaw, pressing for action. Since then, she has lobbied ministers, regulators and Thames Water repeatedly.

The Liberal Democrats have consistently argued that water companies must be properly regulated and forced to invest in infrastructure, not prioritise shareholder returns. We are campaigning to replace Ofwat with a stronger regulator, end sewage dumping with binding targets, and ensure profits are reinvested to protect our rivers and communities.

Channel 4’s "Dirty Business” highlights a national failure.

In Cranleigh and Alfold, we are living with the consequences — and we will continue to fight for the infrastructure and environmental protections our residents deserve.