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Paul Powlesland

Paul Powlesland

Barrister

Sep 18, 2026

19:00
Why is there sewage coming out of there? Is it a leak? Is it a deliberate release?
19:03
Yeah, there's [laughs] a number of answers to that question.
19:05
The practical, physical answer is that basically there's, um, what's called cross connections.
19:09
So there's breakages in the sewer network that allow sewage to come from the network straight into the tributary, then into the Roding.
19:15
There's what's called misconnections, where people are plumbing their sewage and, you know, bathroom basins straight into the surface water, which goes into the river.
19:22
There's also a, a landfill from the 1970s which is pouring raw ammonia leachate straight into the river as well.
19:29
Those are the practical reasons, but the, the reality of why this is happening is because th- the way the river is seen in our current system.

21 MINS LATER

40:55
So should all rivers be individually be given rights, Paul, or do you think someone should nationally give all the rivers rights? Like, how does this work? Does it work best when it comes from every individual local community, or does it work best when there's some kind of national decision that all our rivers are gonna have rights?

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