DEAR Editor – Last week in the House of Commons MPs had the opportunity to vote for an amendment to the Government’s Environment Bill which would have placed a legal duty on water companies not to pump sewage into rivers including our own river Severn.

The amendment was defeated by the votes of Conservative MPs including Worcester’s MP Robin Walker.

We hear fine words from Mr Walker and his Conservative colleagues about their commitment to developing a green economy yet every time they have the opportunity to put those words into meaningful action they fail to do so.

Our city and our country need local and national leaders who take environmental issues and climate change seriously.

We will not achieve positive action on either with the Conservative Party in charge. In 1878 Gilbert and Sullivan penned these lines in their operetta HMS Pinafore (things haven’t changed much): “I always voted at my party’s call,

And I never thought of thinking for myself at all.”

Mel Allcott

Liberal Democrat City and County Councillor, Claines 

DEAR Editor – Would it be of interest to readers of Worcester News to know that all the local MPs voted to allow Severn Trent Water unfettered amounts of raw sewage into local rivers and streams that drain into either the rivers Severn or the Trent.

The water companies are blaming it on a shortage of treatment chemicals, which is a lie. Treating sewage is a fully biological process and no chemicals are used.

A nurse in a 220-mile challenge to swim the length of the river Severn is in hospital after “swallowing sewage”.

Meanwhile the water companies are paying out billions to their shareholders instead of investing in infrastructure.

Terry James

Drakes Broughton