Ilkley pushes for bathing area status to protect river 'used as open sewer'

Yorkshire campaigners shine spotlight on water firms' practice of discharging untreated sewage into rivers

Local people in a Yorkshire town are pressing for their river to become the first in the UK to be designated as a bathing area to force the authorities to clean up the water they say is being used as an open sewer.

In the spa town of Ilkley a grassroots campaign has uncovered the regular and routine dumping of untreated sewage by Yorkshire Water - with the approval of the Environment Agency - into the River Wharfe.