Britain’s dirty water crisis

Ash Smith, from the campaign group Windrush Against Sewage Pollution, wears waders as makes his way through a farmer's field by a storm overflow outlet near Witney in central England.

BENEATH the grey waters off southern England, 400 million mussels cling to ropes dangling from buoys spread across an area the size of the country’s largest airport.

Almost 5km offshore, Europe’s biggest offshore mussel farm was built by the Holmyard family in Lyme Bay, chosen for its clean waters – far from the millions of litres of sewage dumped into UK seas each year.