“The water companies dump sewage in our waterways and almost every time they do that, that’s a crime. Yet no water company owner, executive or hedge fund manager has ever been prosecuted.
“When you watch the films, you can see the scope and the extent of the scandal. It’s the worst corporate scandal in our history.”
The Fountain of Filth – a new installation publicising Dirty Business. Image: James Veysey / Shutterstock for Channel 4
As the series launches, Channel 4 have unveiled a new public art installation called The Fountain of Filth on London’s Southbank. This is provocative stuff. The striking statue depicts children, women and men vomiting brown water. Above them is a businessman (who looks rather like Keir Starmer) clutching a briefcase overflowing with cash to represent the water companies.
“We have a government that was elected partly on the pledge to clean up the cesspool that is our water companies and our regulators who have operated policies which have had the effect of enabling this festival of greed which the water companies have become,” Bullman told Big Issue at the unveiling of The Fountain of Filth.
“They were elected on that. But their white paper is essentially about backdoor deregulation. In light of the fact that the Environment Agency has failed spectacularly, the Labour government’s response is less regulation and further involvement from the international private asset management funds who own our water companies. It’s really staggering.”
In response to the allegations made in the show, an Environment Agency spokesperson said the current government has committed to ending “self-monitoring” for water companies and added:: “The depiction… in this film does not reflect the significant changes the organisation has undergone in recent years to better tackle water pollution…
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“More people, better data and increased powers mean we will always act on intelligence of potential offences.”
The cast of Dirty Business is led by renowned actors David Thewlis and Jason Watkins, as unlikely double act Ashley Smith and Peter Hammond – recent Big Issue Changemakers as co-founders of Windrush Against Sewage Pollution.
One spent his career investigating bent coppers, the other was a professor of computational biology, both live next to the River Windrush and had witnessed its transformation. By combining their talents they are able to navigate the obfuscation of the water companies and the complex data showing the output from their local Burford sewage works, near Oxford.
Speaking at the statue unveiling, Smith said: “They’ve normalised dumping untreated sewage, and we know what the consequences can be. Because we know about Heather Preen, who died from it. And we know that they tried to cover that up and remove the link from sewage. How many more people have been victims? We do not know.
The trailer for Dirty Business on Channel 4.
“We’re not finished. It’s what we do next that counts. It’s what this programme does and how we do not tolerate being treated like this, how we do not just let the staff of those companies take the blame for corporate greed.
“You can’t change your water company. You can’t give up water. So they’ve got us. We have to fight – and now’s the moment to do it. We cannot waste this.”
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The new series launches as campaign group Surfers Against Sewage reveal the latest data showing that sewage poured into England’s bathing waters for 124,717 hours in 2025, and 1,236 people reported sickness after using the water. This year, English water companies have already dumped sewage into bathing waters for 46,141 hours.
SAS have also launched a new petition calling on the government to put public health before profit, with Giles Bristow, Surfers Against Sewage chief executive, saying: “For three decades, millions of hours of sewage have been dumped into the nation’s waters while millions in payouts have been siphoned off.
“But this isn’t about data and statistics. It’s about Heather [Preen]. It’s about Reuben [a young surfer who believes he contracted Meniere’s disease after surfing in polluted waters]. A mother in surgery after a swim. A surfer gambling with his health. A child rushed to hospital after a day at the beach. Real people, still suffering, while shareholders get richer. You cannot put a price on clean water. But this government has. And we are all paying it.”
By bringing together the science, the activism and the real-life impact of the ongoing sewage scandal in an accessible television drama, Dirty Business should be a gamechanger. But then again, so should the death of Heather Preen back in 1999.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has been approached for comment.
Dirty Business airs on Channel 4 at 9pm on 23, 24, 25 February 2026
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