A family looking for marine life on the Isle of Wight. The study found one source of Pfas was from treated effluent from Southern Water plants on the mainland. Photograph: Nikreates/Alamy
Study of Channel finds levels of toxic Pfas in Solent at 13 times safe limits in some places, with much coming from treated sewage
Scientists have found high levels of toxic Pfas, or “forever chemicals”, in soil, water and throughout the marine food chain in the UK’s Solent strait, including at protected environmental sites, according to a new study.
In some samples, pollution was 13 times the safe threshold for coastal waters. Others, which were below legal limits for individual chemicals, failed tests for combined toxicity.
The samples were taken from the Solent strait, which runs between the Isle of Wight and the mainland, forming part of the Channel. The chemicals are thought to have entered the environment from wastewater treatment plants, sewage outflows, historic landfills and nearby military sites.
Researchers said their findings highlighted the need to monitor chemicals in combination and to make a blanket ban on Pfas part of the government’s water reform agenda.
Prof Alex Ford, a biologist at the University of Portsmouth and one of the study’s authors, said: “If there was an oil spill in the Solent that industry would have to pay for the restoration of those habitats, but that doesn’t happen with sewage.
But he added: “This is one thing I don’t necessarily pin on the water companies because they don’t have the capacity to treat these compounds. That’s why they should be banned at source.”
“It’s not good enough to plan to have a plan,” said Calum Duncan, head of policy at the environmental charity. “We urgently need action and we have this once-in-a-generation opportunity with the water reform process to get on and do that.”
Article by Emiliano Mellino republished from TBIJ under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
George Madgwick has multiple tribunal rulings against him for unpaid wages
When Nigel Farage declared that young people should be paid less, George Madgwick leapt to his defence.
Madgwick, a restaurateur and Reform’s most senior councillor in Portsmouth, told the radio station LBC young people were being paid too much and were priced out of jobs. He admitted that reducing the minimum wage for those under 21 would be unpopular, but said politicians “need to start being honest with the general population”.
But what he didn’t disclose was that employment tribunals have found that some of his own companies failed to pay employees wages and holiday pay.
In total, two of his businesses have been ordered to pay £4,386 to former employees for breaching employment law. Madgwick told the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) he is contesting the tribunals’ rulings, which he says were made without the companies having opportunity to defend the claims. So far his businesses have not paid the sums awarded to his former staff.
Only the most shameless employer would tell young people they’re paid too much while failing to pay their own staff’s wages
According to one of the judgments, an employee of Madgwick’s Signature by the Wicks restaurant, was unable to claim maternity pay because it had failed to provide her with a contract or pay statements.
The tribunal ordered the business to pay £1,800 to make up for the unpaid maternity pay, as well as £400 in unpaid wages and £1,120 in unpaid holiday pay.
Another of Madgwick’s businesses, Parnells Food Outlets Ltd, had two separate judgments against it, one for unauthorised deduction of wages and another for unpaid holiday pay.
Bryan Simpson, the national lead for the Unite union’s hospitality sector, said Madgwick’s companies represent everything that is wrong with unscrupulous hospitality employers.
“Only the most shameless employer would tell young people they’re paid too much while failing to pay their own staff’s wages, holiday pay, and even denying a new mum her legal right to a contract, costing them hundreds in maternity pay,” he said.
“You can’t preach about hard work when you won’t even pay your workers — this is exploitation dressed up as opinion from Reform’s leader on Portsmouth council.”
Even though the most recent judgment was handed down more than two years ago, Madgwick told TBIJ he only became aware of the tribunal cases recently.
He said the tribunal had served notice of the claims to his companies’ addresses after he had vacated the premises, leaving him unable to defend himself as he didn’t get any letters or notices about the cases.
Madgwick says the hearings took place without him or his businesses having any awareness or legal representation. He said he has now applied for the judgments to be reconsidered, but he didn’t want to provide any evidence or copies of those applications while the legal proceedings were ongoing.
Both businesses are still listed as active on Companies House but have not filed accounts for several years. The law requires directors to keep the addresses of their businesses up to date. This is in part so that documents sent to them are received by a company official.
Madgwick said that both companies had been dormant since 2022 and were in the process of being formally wound up “with all necessary filings and notifications”. He suggested that the employment tribunal cases were delaying the winding up process.
TBIJ has not seen the applications Madgwick has submitted to overturn the judgments. However, several lawyers told TBIJ that if the tribunal were to find that the documents were validly served at the registered company address, it was unlikely that the tribunal would be sympathetic to his attempts to have the matters reviewed.
Madgwick is listed as a shareholder of 15 other businesses – all are dissolved and most never filed accounts. He told TBIJ that “almost all of them were non-trading dormant companies that were set up as holding names, mostly over 10 years ago”.
Earlier this month Madgwick used his experience of the hospitality sector to argue in favour of Farage’s suggestion to lower the minimum wage for young people. He told LBC: “It’s not outrageous. I own restaurants, that is my job. I own businesses in hospitality. I’m telling you now – I’ve employed a lot of young people. A lot of really good young people too. But there are certain qualities, especially in hospitality, that you can’t learn without age. Interactions with customers, for example.”
He has subsequently claimed on facebook that Reform is “the party of workers”.
Cal Corkery, a councillor who sits on Portsmouth council’s employment committee, said Reform may claim to be on the side of working people, but their proposal to “cut the minimum wage for young workers shows whose side they’re really on.”
“Led nationally by an ex-banker and locally here in Portsmouth by a businessman whose companies have repeatedly broken employment law, Reform are exposing themselves as just another party of the privileged elite,” he said.
Madgwick was a member of the Portsmouth Independents Party (PIP) until he defected to Reform earlier this year. All but two of Reform’s eight councillors in Portsmouth were previously members of PIP.
Header image: George Madgwick and the site of his former restaurant, Signature by the Wicks. Design by Oliver Kemp
Reporters: Emiliano Mellino Bureau Local editor: Gareth Davies Deputy Editor: Chrissie Giles Editor: Franz Wild Production editor: Frankie Goodway Fact checker: Ero Partsakoulaki
TBIJ has a number of funders, a full list of which can be found here. None of our funders have any influence over editorial decisions or output.
Article by Emiliano Mellino republished from TBIJ under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Protesters outside the former Bell Hotel in Epping, July 31, 2025
AT LEAST 20 far-right protests are planned outside hotels on Friday as fascists seek to repeat last summer’s race riots, anti-racist campaigners have warned.
Stand Up to Racism warned that members and former members of the nazi terror group Combat 18 and the neonazi party Homeland have been organising or attending many of the protests.
Counter-demonstrations are being staged across the country as Labour-run councils joined Tory and Reform authorities looking to block hotels from housing asylum-seekers.
Reform leader Nigel Farage called for the protests after the High Court ordered the closure of the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, following a series of anti-migrant demonstrations.
Stand Up to Racism co-convener Weyman Bennett said: “This is a dangerous moment. The Epping ruling and the so-called protests are a licence for racism and racist attacks.
“Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick are competing for the racist vote, and in the process are openly encouraging fascists on the ground to employ violence to get hotels closed. This will cost lives.
“They want a repeat of the violent riots last summer. We won’t let them and will oppose the far right and racists every time they take to the streets.”
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Counter-demonstrations will be held in Bournemouth, Cardiff, Chichester, Leeds, Leicester, Orpington and Portsmouth on Friday, and in Bristol, Cannock, Horley, Leicester, Liverpool, Long Eaton, Newcastle, and Wakefield on Saturday.
Climate science denier Nigel Farage explains that it’s simple to blame asylum-seekers or Muslims for everything.Keir Starmer refuses to be outcnuted by Nigel Farage’s chasing the racist bigot vote.
The navy’s aircraft carriers in Portsmouth. (Photo: Jonathan Brady / Alamy)
If chancellor Rachel Reeves is serious about public finances, she must stop the Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers causing a black hole in the military budget.
The navy’s aircraft carriers in Portsmouth. (Photo: Jonathan Brady / Alamy)
As Labour presents the public with large tax rises and cuts in services, Britain’s armed forces are wasting billions of pounds of public money on projects with no practical use in present or potential future conflicts.
It would be nothing short of a scandal if they are given more taxpayers’ money to spend.
Prime candidates for the chop, and an immediate target for the government’s promised Office for the Value of Money, should be the two aircraft carriers: HMS Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales – the largest ships ever built for the Royal Navy.
Independent analysts are starting to question the future of the carriers, something that was unthinkable not so long ago. There is speculation that at least one could be mothballed.
Shortly after he retired as chief of the defence staff, General (now Lord) David Richards described the ships as “unaffordable vulnerable metal cans”. They were “behemoths”, he told me.
Protesters outside the former Bell Hotel in Epping, July 31, 2025
