Naturalist Steve Backshall lives by the Thames and said pollution is ruining the river.
The Deadly 60 presenter, who lives near Maidenhead in Berkshire, told BBC News he was teaching his children to swim in an area where human faeces is periodically released into the water.
“The state of our rivers… should be a source of national shame,” Backshall said.
It comes as Thames Water has been fined £3.3m after it discharged millions of litres of undiluted sewage into two rivers in Sussex, and river pollution posing a risk to health was found in tests in the River Thames shortly before Henley Royal Regatta.
