'Our paddleboards come out brown, it's disgusting'

Darren, known as "Captain Baldy", helped to organise a pirate-themed protest against sewage in Norfolk's rivers

Paddle-boarders, punters and swimmers have held protests at rivers and beaches across the East of England to call for action against sewage pollution.

"When you take the paddle boards out of the water at the end of the day, they're just brown and it's disgusting," said Mel Sambells at the event on Saturday in Whitlingham Broad, Norfolk.

Demonstrations organised by Surfers Against Sewage were also held on same day on the River Cam in Cambridge, the River Deben in Suffolk, and beaches in Essex.

Anglian Water apologised after it recorded nearly 44,000 sewage discharges across the region in 2024 and said it was spending £1bn on overflow and spillage problems.

Jacky and Mel say their paddle boards turn a brown colour after being used on the local river

"This is our playground. We're paddle boarders and swimmers, and we're fed up of it because people have got sick after swimming," said Darren, who came up with the idea of "Pirates against Poo".

"The water companies put in profit before pollution, which is affecting wildlife and the environment.

"It's not good, and it needs to stop. Is £1bn enough? Is it too little too late? It can't happen tomorrow, it has to happen today," he told the BBC.

Jacky Honor added: "They say things are changing, but we need to make sure that's going to happen, so we can't just step back and be quiet. We need to keep our presence out there."

Campaigner Darren came up with the idea for activists to dress as pirates during the protest

Fellow protester Chris Williams said he had noticed "pollution incidents" since settling in Norfolk and doing water sports, including in the River Wensum and Bure.

"After a while I understood it was a major problem and we had to do something to get people's attention.

"We're all here in fancy dress, but we're making a stand against the sewage incidents and pollution, and trying to hold these water companies to account.

"Something needs to be done soon," he said.

Anglian Water said it was spending £11bn overall to improve its performance, and blamed a large number of storm spills in recent years on extreme weather.

Punters also held a protest at the River Cam in Cambridge

Elsewhere in Essex, a protest was held at Jubilee Beach in Southend, which Surfers Against Sewage said "has one of the worst-hit bathing waters".

It said Anglian Water had promised to cut sewage by 75% but in fact, it increased by 30% in 2024.

"All of these reasons, combined with the loss of two Blue Flags in two years, demonstrates to us the environmental degradation, potential risk to public health and the need for massive change," the campaign group said.

An Anglian Water spokesperson said bathing water quality was "complicated" and could "be affected by many different factors".

"We know our customers will be disappointed to see an increase in our storm overflow data this year.

"This is largely reflective of the extreme weather and persistent flooding we saw across our region in the first part of 2024 which accounted for nearly 50% of our spills.

"We know our assets need to be resilient to changing weather patterns. We also understand the strength of feeling around storm spills, and having apologised, we have promised transformational action – because we know our climate is going to keep changing, so we have to find better ways of dealing with extreme rainfall.

"Our next five-year business plan builds at pace on the work we've already started. It contains our largest ever investment – £1bn – into tackling storm spills, and £11 billion overall to improve our performance."