How the River Kent went from a haven for anglers to a flood of condoms, wet wipes

In the 1980s, anglers on the River Kent in Kendal would catch salmon by the hundreds. Now, they’re lucky to catch a few dozen.

In their stead is the assorted detritus of unflushables that, rain or shine, still get sent down the loo by the British public. From entire razors to wet wipes to used condoms, it all ends up in the Kent.

"Sanitary towels, paper towels, I will say durexes have been hanging from the trees, the branches," Ian Carradus, president of the Kent (Westmorland) Angling Association, told i. "It's quite upsetting, really."

The culprit, indiscriminate flushers aside, is a storm overflow from United Utilities’ Kendal treatment works. Currently, when it discharges, the only thing stopping the tide of toilet contents is a set of vertical bars set 25mm apart.

After it was reported to them, the Environment Agency (EA) found the company in breach of its permits and in February ordered it to fit a more appropriate screen with vertical and horizontal bars set 10mm apart. The deadline to do so is August 31.

United Utilities told i that work to fit the screen was already under way and that it was "committed to completing this as soon as we can".

The new screen should mean an end to the condoms, but it won't save the Kent.

Like so many of Britain's rivers, it is beset by pollution of all kinds, from the sewage frequently pumped into it by United Utilities to vast amounts of agricultural runoff filling it with unwanted nutrients and chemicals.

The Kent is a site of special scientific interest, which should give it legal protections, but action so far has been limited. Fish Legal, the Angling Trust and the WWF have taken the Government to court twice, in 2015 and 2021, to try and force it to act on the farming runoff sullying the Kent and 36 other legally protected rivers.

The Covid-19 pandemic and limited resources have delayed action. As of June last year, the most recent update, the plans remain on hold.

For Mr Carradus, the main issue remains the sewage. The local fishing club's membership has dwindled, alongside the health and appearance of the Kent.

"Our membership is definitely slowing up. At the moment we’re down a third and what we normally would have for the club," he said. "All the publicity in the Gazette, our local paper, people are thinking ‘Oh, well, I’m not fishing there if it's like that.'"

The treatment works sit directly opposite the angling club's stretch of river, an area known as Watercrook, the site of Kendal's Roman-era predecessor settlement.

While the new screen should get rid of most of the detritus, the river will still be getting frequent doses of sewage.

"It's everything that's gone into the river that you can't see. We’re only seeing what's catching in the trees. There's raw sewage, you can't see it, and it's in the river."

"It was a brilliant river. It was lovely and clean," added Mr Carradus. Watercrook used to look like the upstream stretches of the Kent, he told i. "The north end of town, that hasn't got pollution, you can see all the stones, the colours and the bottom of the riverbed. You go below United Utilities in Kendal and the bottom looks dead. It's got algae all over the stones… and at certain times you can't even see the bottom of the river."

The two outfalls from the Kendal treatment works spilled sewage into the river for 162 hours in 2022.

The works are among more than 2,000 being investigated as part of a broader joint EA and Ofwat inquiry into whether United Utilities and five other water companies were failing to stay within their environmental permits and illegally spilling sewage on a vast scale.

United Utilities is the worst sewage polluter in England and Wales, although the company points to its large area of operation and higher levels of rainfall in the North West. It also paid out the largest dividends of any water company last year, of £292m, and has paid out £3.1bn since 2010.

As well as untreated sewage, Mr Carradus believes that the company's treated wastewater is killing the river.

"It's black. When the river is low and they keep pumping that [treated] effluent out, it's black, there's no life whatsoever. No fly life, nothing. Is absolutely dead, and you can see why fish don't stop in there," he said.

Treated wastewater, while it must meet multiple environmental standards, can still contain high levels of nutrients which encourage algal growth that smother rivers.

The treated water outfall pours into an area of slack water, which local campaigners are concerned means the pollutants are not being suitably dispersed.

That it does so at all is only because Storm Desmond in December 2015 destroyed pipework which led to an outfall further downstream. Eight years later, the temporary outfall remains in place.

United Utilities vehemently denies that the treated wastewater is harming the river and says that it has spent £17m to ensure that treated water is now cleaned to a higher standard, including via UV treatment, than that which was put into the river via the old outfall.

It also plans to undertake further work to reduce phosphorus levels, a key nutrient, by 2025.

It says that monitoring data shows low water levels and higher temperatures are often to blame for the spread of algae.

It also said it was working hard to rebuild the pipes damaged by the storm but had encountered difficulties and that it could only conduct the work in summer due to environmental restrictions, further slowing the work.

A United Utilities spokesperson told i: "We have tried with two previous projects to install a new pipe but the ground and working conditions proved to be too unstable at the time. We are now using tunnelling to install the new permanent outfall pipe and, subject to receipt of the necessary environmental permits, we plan to carry out the work this summer."