I love this time of year, with the days reaching their greatest length.

The warmth of sun on your back, ice creams, the pub garden, Bury in bloom, freshly cut fields, a barbecue, a paddling pool? News in.

Parents can now add discouraging our children away from paddling at the river’s edge to the list of summer standards.

The news of the scandalous level of sewage in our waterways won’t have escaped your attention. Or your senses.

This toxic legacy runs through our borough as it does throughout Britain. In Bury North last year there were 543 total sewage spills into our rivers.

From Ramsbottom to Redvales and out.

A stinking 2,224 hours of raw sewage pumped into our water.

I visited one stretch of the River Irwell with Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Oldham West and Royton MP Jim McMahon.

More than 70 incidents, more than 270 hours in one year of human waste pumped into the river at Nuttall Park alone.

Labour analysis revealed that since 2016, a new sewage dumping event has taken place every two-and- a-half minutes, on average.

A staggering 1,276 years’ worth of raw sewage into our waterways in a
brief seven-year period.

Not one English river is classed as being in a healthy condition.

None meet good chemical standards and few meet good ecological standards.

Thirteen years of Tory government has taken our country backwards allowing it to be treated as an open sewer.

The industry holds its hands up.

But only after paying £63bn in dividends to shareholders.

And their plans now? To borrow the money to fix the problem over the next decades.

And add the cost of this borrowing to our household bills when the cost of living is rocketing. 

No-one should have to worry about whether they are able to enjoy our areas of outstanding beauty.

Or if they are encountering raw sewage by taking a dip in our waters.

A general election is round the corner. And as you have read from me before now, I know it isn’t enough to point at the mess under the Tories.

Together, we'll end the Tory sewage scandal.

Labour will deliver mandatory monitoring on all sewage outlets.

A Labour government will impose automatic fines for discharges.

And ensure that water bosses are held to account for negligence and undeserved payouts.

Another future is possible. Once the Tory government clears out, the next Labour government will clear up.

I want the growing confidence for Labour to re-assure everyone who has a stake in resolving this and much more.

Not because of the hopeless Tories but because of our shared belief in a better, cleaner, stronger, greener future. And one that, in time, we can all vote for.

James Frith is the Labour Candidate for the General Election. He served as MP for Bury North between 2017-19 and hopes to again.

He tweets @JamesFrith Contact James@JamesFrithForBuryNorth.com.