Sewage scandal: pollution plaguing Britain’s beaches and beauty spots as water firms told 'clean up your act'

18 August 2022, 15:36 | Updated: 18 August 2022, 16:20

Water firms have been told to 'clean up their act' after a series of pollution incidents plaguing Britain’s beaches and beauty spots.

Days after pollution alerts were issued for dozens of beaches, the cleanliness of Britain’s beauty spots is under scrutiny with reports of a foul-smelling oil dump in Manchester woodland, E.coli found in a Kent river, and swimming being banned at beaches in Devon, and East Sussex.

Beaches in East Sussex were closed after sewage was dumped into the sea when a pumping station suffered electrical issues yesterday evening, with the water company responsible saying it didn't know how many litres of sewage had been released.

Southern Water said in a tweet that “significant issues with electrical power at one of our wastewater pumping stations has caused a release into the sea at Bexhill.

“Rother District Council has made the difficult decision to advise the closure of Bexhill and Normans Bay beaches.” Video footage on social media shows wastewater spewing out of a pipe onto the shore and towards the ocean.

One beachgoer tweeted there were no warning signs on the beach to warn the public and that they saw "teens, children and older folk going into the sea for an evening swim."

Power was restored to the pumping station by the evening.

A spokesman for Southern Water said:

“We are deeply sorry for this incident and we understand the seriousness and the distress this causes.”

Another south coast resident criticised Southern Water urging the firm to 'clean up its act.'

Alongside a map of sewage alerts, she wrote: "These red crosses today are the Sewage alerts for the area where we live and swim regularly. During the children's summer holidays! It's disgusting and a scandal. Time to clean up your act."

Green MP Caroline Lucas wrote: "The continual dumping of sewage into our rivers & seas is a national scandal – I'm contacting Southern Water *again* to demand they explain their actions.

"But the bottom line is our privatised water system has utterly failed – water networks MUST be brought back into public hands."

'The United Kingdom has been hit by a poonami.'

In Manchester, residents complained of ‘foul smelling oil’ dumped at a popular dog-walking spot in Prestwich. The MEN reported fury over the ‘nasty’ state of the woodland site, saying it had become a ‘no go zone’ for dog walkers.

In North Devon, one of the county’s most popular beaches was declared unsafe for swimming.

Saunton Sands was closed and a pollution warning was issued on Sunday ‘due to pollution from sewage’.

Local MP Selaine Saxby later said the beach had been reopened, confirming that a combination of ‘extreme heat’ had caused ‘some sheep manure’ to float on the water at high tide, washing up on Saunton Sands.

Earlier today, Hugo Tagholm, CEO of campaign group Surfers Against Sewage slammed water firms, saying that more had to be done to protect the environment and end sewage pollution.

Speaking to LBC’s Nick Ferrari, Mr Tagholm said:

“The last few days have been a shocking indictment on the water companies, we’ve gone from drought conditions where they couldn’t cope with too little water, to flood conditions where they can’t cope with too much water.

“The government needs to be tougher with this industry, they need to be capping dividends and executive pay until this mess is sorted out on both ends.

“[Improving] both the reservoirs being built, and also the sewage infrastructure we need for a future that’s facing climate change and more extreme weather.

“If the current penalties aren’t deterring these hugely profitable private monopolies then we need to look at an alternative solution.

“It seems they’re only geared up to deal with a slightly overcast drizzly day at 16 degrees."

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Southern Water, alongside Rother District Council, are currently investigating the potential impact on the bathing water quality.

Phélim Mac Cafferty, the leader of Brighton & Hove City Council said he was ‘disgusted’ and is planning to meet Southern Water’s chief executive next week.

"Southern Water need to stop the sewage and pay for an immediate clean-up. But they also need to do much more to stop this happening again."

The south west and south coast of England were the worst affected by the pollution alerts. Swimmers have been advised against bathing at seven beaches in Cornwall as a result of storm sewage overflows, with four in Devon and five in Dorset also polluted by the recent downpours.

Nine beaches in Sussex, three on the Isle of Wight and three in Essex were also hit by storm sewage.

Elsewhere, there were warnings in place at spots in Lincolnshire, Cumbria, Lancashire and South Wales, as well as two inland wild swimming spots near Bristol and near Minehead in Somerset.

On Tuesday, there was an alert at Spittal near Berwick in Northumberland, although this has since cleared.

There has been growing public outrage in recent years at the volume of raw or partially-treated sewage pumped into the UK's rivers and coastal waters.

Mr Tagholm, the chief executive of SAS, tweeted on Tuesday: "The shitstorm after the calm. Many south coast beaches off limits due to @SouthernWater sewage discharges."

A spokeswoman for SAS said there were a further nine pollution warnings in place not linked to heavy rain, and those visiting the coast are advised to always check its interactive map on its website before they swim.

In a report published in July, the Environment Agency said water company bosses should face jail for the worst pollution incidents, describing the sector's performance in 2021 as the "worst we have seen for years".

An Environment Agency spokesman said on Wednesday: "The current risk of surface water flooding reinforces the need for robust action from water companies to reduce discharges from storm overflows. We are monitoring the current situation and supporting local authorities where needed."

A spokesman for Southern Water said on Wednesday: "Yesterday's thunder storms brought heavy rain which fell on to parched ground and couldn't absorb surface run-off, meaning that more rain than usual overwhelmed our network.

"This led to some overflows - which are used to protect homes, schools, businesses and hospitals from flooding - spilling excess water into the sea in parts of west Sussex, including Seaford.

"These discharges are heavily diluted and typically 95 per cent of them are rainwater."

He continued: "We are dedicated to significantly reducing storm overflows and are running innovative pilot schemes across the region to reduce the amount of rainfall entering our combined sewers by 2030."

The spokesman said a viral video of raw sewage apparently being pumped into the water at Seaford, East Sussex, was in fact surface water run-off.

Northumbrian Water said: "During the heavy rain earlier this week, a short discharge of storm water was made from a storm overflow at Spittal, near Berwick. Such discharges are mostly rainwater with a small percentage of wastewater that have come together because they use the same sewer network.

"At times of heavy rainfall, all water companies use storm overflows as a relief valve on our sewer network to protect the homes of customers and the environment from sewer flooding. Such discharges happen with both permission and scrutiny from the Environment Agency.

"In the last Bathing Water classifications released by Defra, 32 of the North East's 34 designated bathing waters achieved either 'excellent' or 'good' ratings, with Spittal in the highest category.

"We have invested heavily in upgrades to our wastewater network in the last two decades and beyond, which have played an important part in these results, and we continue to do so. More than £80 million of investment is targeted towards improvements related to storm overflows in our current 2020-25 operating period."

Anglian Water, which supplies Lincolnshire and also provides waste water services at Southend, said: "Combined storm overflows (CSOs) were originally designed to protect homes and businesses from flooding during heavy rainfall, like we saw last night.

"In parts of our region last night, we saw almost 100ml of rain fall in only a few hours. That's the equivalent of well over a month's worth on to ground that is essentially like concrete.

"As it's been dry for so long, intense rainfall on to hard ground will not soak in and instead runs straight off."

A spokeswoman said any discharges would predominantly have been rainwater, adding its BeachAware system had notified SAS of the discharge "as a precaution so people can make educated decisions about swimming in the sea".

She added: "However, we recognise that they are no longer the right solution when sewers become overloaded with rainwater.

"We've been dealing with CSOs for years, tackling those which pose an environmental risk and working through the rest.

"Between 2020 and 2025, we're investing more than £200 million to reduce storm spills across the East of England and, as part of our Get River Positive commitment, we've promised that storm overflows will not be the reason for unhealthy rivers in our region by 2030."

Other water companies in areas where there are sewage alerts have been approached for comment.