Feargal Sharkey on Gyllyngvase Beach ‘Stop the Sh*t Show’

Feargal Sharkey arrived on Gyllyngvase Beach as part of his ‘Stop the Sh*t Show’ nationwide tour to highlight the issue of pollution in Britain's waterways.

Feargal Sharkey arrived on Gyllyngvase Beach as part of his ‘Stop the Sh*t Show’ (Image: Paul Armstrong)

Mr Sharkey, the President of SERA, Labour’s Environment Campaign, met Jayne Kirkham, the Labour Party MP candidate in Truro and Falmouth, as well as members of protest groups including wild swimming group The Blue Tits and Surfers Against Sewage as well as traditional Fal oyster fisherman Chris Ranger.

Feargal is doing the tour as part of his support for Labour in his campaign against the dumping of raw sewage by the water companies in seas and rivers and a crackdown on huge pay outs to bosses and shareholders.

He told the Packet it was really the people such as protestors in Falmouth who were driving change rather than him.

“I am doing nothing but helping raise in a slightly louder voice awareness of people like Surfers’ Against Sewage and likewise swimmers in Falmouth and people that have been out there doing this, building this and drawing attention to it,” he said.

Feargal Sharkey is supporting Labour's Jayne Kirkham at the next election (Image: Paul Armstrong)

“They’re the ones that should be getting a round of applause and all the praise because they’re the ones that have actually done all the work and they’re the ones as voters that can change the whole situation in three weeks’ time come July 4.”

He added: “This always was and always will be about people power. People think they have a small voice, but it is wild swimmers in Falmouth that have proved, swimmers in Plymouth that have proved and Surfer’s Against Sewage that have proved that when that small mouse squeaks it can become a Lion’s roar and if you’re the government you better watch out mate because it will kick you out of power.”

Sarah Walsh who set up the Blue Tits Wild Swimmers Club in Cornwall five years ago told the Packet she now had 20 swim groups throughout Cornwall and also set up a group called “Sh*t Free Seas” and was glad to welcome Feargal to Falmouth.

“It’s absolutely incredible, he’s such an eloquent speaker and so passionate about clean waterways generally,” she told the Packet.

She said pollution has become “absolutely horrendous” throughout the whole if the UK in the last few years.

“I’d like to see the antiquated system updated completely and the money being paid to investors, and the boss of South West Water particularly, being invested in improving our antiquated system and stop releasing sewage into our seas,” she said.

“It affects me hugely, from a business level, risk assessment for swims and when there is sewage in the seas I can’t take people swimming.

“Everybody who sea swims does it for a reason it’s about relaxing, it’s about feeling better in oneself and if we can’t get in there we’re not being able to help our mental health.”

Fisherman Chris Ranger from Mylor who operates out of Mylor Harbour said things had got so bad in the Fal Estuary in the last 15 years that he was looking at giving up.

Fisherman Chris Ranger from Mylor who operates out of Mylor Harbour said things had got so bad in the Fal Estuary in the last 15 years that he was looking at giving up (Image: Paul Armstrong)

“To be honest I’m just done with this industry,” he said “I’m just losing customers left right and centre, myself and the only other merchant at the moment are having the same thoughts.

“You just can’t compete against water companies dumping that much sewage in the sea.

He said on one day, 20 million cubic litres of raw sewage was dumped in the top of the river into a massive Atlantic “flush”.

“It didn’t happen 15 years ago,” he said. “It happened occasionally when there was an asset failure and you accepted that and we’d get a warning whereas now it’s just when it rains or when they’ve got too much this and that. I can’t think of any other business that pays dividends for a non-profitable business.”

Chris says he is going to wait until the election and see if things change if Labour get in, when he believes they will start fining the companies.

He said he’d been fishing for oysters since about 2008 and the past five years had been “horrendous” and he’s had to give up several times. “The more mention of poor water quality, the less customers there are to sell to,” he said.

After speaking to Feargal, Chris got him to sign a vinyl copy of his Undertones' album while a member of Surfers Against Sewage got him to sign a copy of a Teenage Kicks 7".

Feargal signs Chris's Undertones album (Image: Paul Armstrong)

Jayne Kirkham told supporters and protestors that Labour had plans to beef up the regulator, give criminal sanctions for bosses and to actually do something about the water quality in this country.