Group expands legal claim over South West Water sewage pollution | Water industry
The group’s legal claim against South West Water, alleging sewage pollution in coastal waters is causing harm to businesses and individuals, has been extended to Devon and Cornwall.
Thousands more people can now join an environmental community group’s first legal case against a water company over the impact of sewage pollution.
So far 1,400 people from Exmouth have joined the trial but Leigh Day said on Wednesday it had been expanded to include residents and businesses in Dawlish, Sidmouth, Teignmouth in Devon and Newquay and Penzance in Cornwall.
The claim suggests that South West Water’s failures were widespread and centered on many seaside towns in Devon and Cornwall rather than just the Exmouth area.
Tina Naldrett, 62, a nurse from Dawlish, also agreed with the claim after years of seeing pollution on her beach getting worse.
“If the sea is clear, you can see your feet, the sun is on your back and you hear the seagulls, that’s free magic,” he said. “But more and more I take my friends to the water and we see sanitary products floating, plastic from tampons, wastewater and foam from wastewater. The situation is getting worse.
“Water companies do not own the sea. We are an island country, the sea belongs to all of us, and it is immoral and ethically bankrupt for water companies to use the sea in this way.”
In 2024 South West Water discharged 544,429 hours of raw sewage into seas and coastal waters, including almost the entire year-round overflow at Salcombe Regis; this was the longest sewage discharge time in any storm flood zone in England and Wales.
Last July Ofwat imposed a £24m enforcement penalty on South West Water identifying systemic failures The manner in which it maintains and operates wastewater treatment works and sewer networks, dating back to at least 2017.
Leaks of raw sewage through combined storm overflows are permitted and considered legal only after exceptional circumstances, such as heavy rainfall, if the system is at risk of flooding. But Ofwat said more than half of South West Water’s treatment plants were regularly leaking into the environment.
More than 1,400 people from the Exmouth, Lympstone and Budleigh Salterton areas took part in the legal claim, which was launched in 2024. They oppose the repeated use of storm floods to dump raw sewage into the sea, triggering swimming advisories, closing beaches and preventing people from using the beach.
Oliver Holland, who is leading the claim, said expanding the case to Devon and Cornwall was an important step.
“South West Water has a record of very poor environmental performance and my customers claim this has badly affected their lives and livelihoods. By summarizing my customers’ claims and expanding on them we are ensuring that anyone who feels they have been affected by sewer pollution in Dawlish, Sidmouth, Teignmouth or at Longrock beach or Fistral beach in Cornwall has the opportunity to take action.”
South West Water has been contacted for comment.
