Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the (a) adequacy of improvements to sewage works discharging into the river Mole and (b) extent of further work needed to reduce storm overflows from those sites.

The Environment Agency (EA) has 31 Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP) schemes in the current investment period 2020-25. These cover the Mole catchment as a whole.

The schemes involve a range of actions including increasing storm tank capacity, investigations at Sewage Treatment Works in the catchment and monitoring. These schemes are on target to be completed by the end of the year and will be reviewed by the EA.