Sewage outflows have lasted hundreds of hours in parts of Oxfordshire, new data released by the Environment Agency has shown.

With politicians from all parties criticising each other for their policy on sewage releases, data from the Environment Agency has revealed 15 sewage spills lasted for 164 hours in the Oxford East constituency area last year.

In the Oxford West and Abingdon constituency, there were slightly more sewage spills, 19, but these lasted for 73 hours.

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However, the Witney MP Robert Court’s constituency was worst for both the number of sewage spills and the number of hours in which they lasted.

In Witney, there was 507 spills and these lasted 6,362 hours.

MP for Oxford East Anneliese Dodds has hit out at the Conservative Party for creating a “sewage scandal” and criticised the Tories for not backing the Labour Party’s plans which would have allowed “measures to improve monitoring”.

Ms Dodds is also particularly concerned that only 33 per cent of the 15 sewage spills in Oxford East were listed with the ‘Event Duration Monitoring’ commissioned.

The MP said: “There appears to be a particularly low level of Event Duration Monitoring of sewage outflows in Oxford East.”

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Oxford East was in the bottom five per cent of parliamentary constituencies when it came to ‘Event Duration Monitoring’.

Ms Dodds said people would be “rightly furious that the Conservatives are giving the green light for water companies to continue dumping sewage into our waters”.

She Dodds hit out specifically at Conservative MPs for not supporting the Labour Party’s proposals which would have set a legal requirement for the monitoring of all sewage outlets and penalties for failures in adhering to monitoring requirements.

Witney’s MP Mr Courts accused the Labour Party of using the issue for “political posturing” and said the party had launched a “misleading” and “aggressive social media pile on”.

Mr Courts highlighted the Labour Party was make using of Opposition Day Debate and pointed out that these debates “do not make law, but are non-binding talking shops”.

Mr Courts told the Oxford Mail the 507 spills in Witney were “unacceptable” and said he had “been campaigning to tackle long-standing issues of water pollution and flooding” since 2017.

He explained: “Over the years, alongside local groups, I have applied continuous pressure on Thames Water to reaffirm my opposition to any sewage releases and called Thames Water to take urgent action to start the much-needed local infrastructure upgrades across West Oxfordshire, which have now begun.

“This has resulted in Thames Water bringing forward major upgrades for Witney Sewage Treatment Works from later in the decade to this year.”

Mr Courts said he would be meeting with Thames Water again next month to push for more infrastructure upgrades to be completed across West Oxfordshire in places such as Brize Norton and Combe.

Ms Dodds has argued that Conservative MPs have repeatedly failed to back plans which would have put an end to sewage dumping, and she cited the Labour amendment which was put forward during the passage of the Environment Act.

Mr Courts has told the Oxford Mail he believes the government “responded positively” to the Labour Party’s attacks by “voting for tougher legislation than the one tabled by Labour”.

It is clear the issue of sewage dumping has become a nationwide political issue and a ‘political football’ for the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

A Thames Water spokesman said: “Today Thames Water has published its plans to upgrade over 250 sewage treatment and network sites, building on its commitment to invest £1.6billion in sewers and sewage treatment works over the next two years.

“Our event duration monitoring (EDM) Map, which we launched in January, has also been upgraded and we’re now including information about our plans for individual sites on the map.”