Midlands

 westmidlands@sas.org.uk

• Name – Martin Poyntz-Roberts
• Profession – BBC Producer
• Region – Midlands
• Key beaches covered – hmmmm…
• SAS background – Over the past couple of years I have helped to raise the profile of SAS in the national media – Radio 4, BBC1..Taken part in the Wave climate change march, helped out with beach cleans for the 20th Anniversary
• Specific Environmental interests – I am obsessed with poo. I recently ran a full reporter piece talking about cow pats. My main interest is the lack of suitable facilities to deal with the amount of sewage that is produced in the UK – the water companies inability to deal with the amount of waste, coupled with their disinterest in solving the problem. There is no reason, in 2010, for raw sewage to find its way into the sea and onto beaches.
• Quiver – Polystyrene, natch. I am the only SAS rep who is literally putting the sewage into surfing – i.e. I am shit.
• Personal mission statement – I want to make the government and the water companies stop polluting the sea with sewage and plastic. Simple as that.

• Telephone/Mobile 07870 645131

I am a BBC producer, working in both radio for Radio 4 and BBC television programmes, for BBC’s Bafta winning series Coast and BBC1’s Countryfile programme.

I have always been involved in programmes and issues that tackle environmental issues and in particular pollution.

My aim is to raise awareness of SAS campaigns through the media and political channels.

I am at my happiest when I am attempting to not drown in the sea.

My expertise is not in surfing, but in the amount of junk and crap that gets poured into the oceans. I have been an environmental journalist for the past ten years, primarily making documentaries for BBC

Radio 4’s Costing The Earth series. I have also worked on BBC1’s Countryfile programme and currently I am the Wildlife Feature Producer for BBC2’s Coast series. Through my work I have left virtually no environmental stone unturned, from giant solar plants in the Sahara to Bjork’s mother on hunger strike over an aluminium smelting plant being built on Europe’s largest glacier. But the stories that get me most worked up are the ones that directly affect us, in the here and now, and environmental problems that could actually be solved given the political will and direct action.

I have recently become something of an expert in all things poo-related. My friends will say that I’ve always talked shit, but now I can with confidence and an informed view. As a result my biggest bug bear is CSOs and the frequency that they discharge. I see no reason why, in 2009, given the profits made by water companies, there is any need to discharge CSOs at all.

I love the coast. I live about as far away from the ocean as you can in this country but get twitchy and break out in hives if I don’t visit the coast at least once a week. Luckily my job right now means I spend a lot of my time at sea looking for and filming marine life and I absolutely love it.

---