Judge warns South West Water pollution incidents must never happen again

SOUTH West Water has been hit with a record £7.8 million fine after a court found the company responsible for hundreds of sewage pollution incidents across Devon and Cornwall.

District Judge Joanna Matson described the pollution as “horrendous” and warned the water company it must ensure such incidents never happen again.

SWW was fined £7,867,733 at Plymouth Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, (September 29), after pleading guilty to 18 environmental offences committed between January 2015 and July 2021.

The Environment Agency prosecution centred on illegal sewage discharges and failures to take reasonable remedial action at sites across Devon and Cornwall. It is the largest ever fine imposed for environmental offences in the region.

The court heard hundreds of sewage spills occurred at some of the region’s most popular bathing locations and environmentally sensitive sites during the six-year period.

At Harlyn, untreated sewage was discharged onto the beach 231 times between January 2016 and July 2021, resulting in a fine of £2.96 million.

The court found SWW’s culpability to be reckless and identified a financial benefit of £360,000 from the offending.

At Nanstallon, the company was fined a further £2.69 million after the court also found reckless culpability, with the offending categorised as Category 2 harm. The court heard that at SWW’s sewage works near Bodmin, there were 336 illegal spills in the seven years to March 2020.

Judge Matson said she found the fact that such a large number of spills had not been detected by the company to be “significant and incredibly concerning”.

She said: “I have made clear in the 2023 case that incidents of pollution by water companies will not be tolerated and must be taken very seriously by these courts.”

The judge said she had taken into account that the latest offences pre-dated a previous sentence handed to SWW in 2023, as well as changes the company had made since then.

“Only time will tell if those changes are successful, I certainly hope that will be the case,” she said.

But she warned the company that its own stated commitment that “one pollution is too many” must now be backed by action.

“It goes without saying that must be the case,” she said. “However, in this case there were hundreds of incidents of sewage spills on to our beaches and into our waterways and sea and untreated sewage gushed through the harbour wall into the harbour at Polperro on a bank holiday weekend.

“SWW need to make sure they carry that mantra through, so horrendous and significant incidents of pollution such as these never happen again.”

The Polperro incident happened on August 24, 2019, when untreated sewage poured through the harbour wall.

Despite alarms being triggered, SWW took 10 hours to attend the incident.

The company was fined £1.12 million over the incident, with the court finding reckless culpability and Category 2 harm.

The case also covered offences at Halvarras, where SWW was fined £351,000 after the court found reckless culpability and Category 3 harm. At Hooe Lake, the company was fined £216,000, with the court finding negligent culpability and Category 3 harm.

A further £202,800 fine was imposed over offences at Bodmin Road, where the court found reckless culpability and Category 3 harm. The court also identified a financial benefit of £89,238 from the offending.

The fines imposed for the six affected areas totalled £7,537,620. SWW was then ordered to pay £329,993 in prosecution costs and a £120 victim surcharge, bringing the total amount ordered by the court to £7,867,733.

The court heard the offences involved six areas across Devon and Cornwall, with 17 charges relating to illegal water discharge activities and another relating to a failure to take reasonable remedial measures following a pumping station failure.

The Environment Agency said SWW repeatedly failed to put in place and enforce environmental management systems that could reasonably have been expected.

In Plymouth, the company had been repeatedly warned about a precarious combined sewer entering Budshead Creek in Whitleigh.

Despite formal warnings from the Environment Agency over several years, no permanent solution was put in place.The pipe eventually collapsed in 2020, causing two pollution incidents in August and September.

Judge Matson found SWW knew the pipe was precarious but failed to act for years before it eventually collapsed and “raw sewage spilled into the watercourse”.

The court also heard that, despite pleading guilty, SWW had attempted to minimise its role in the offending rather than demonstrating remorse and accepting full responsibility.

The prosecution comes just three years after SWW was fined £2.15 million for 13 pollution offences committed between July 2016 and August 2020.

The company has also previously pleaded guilty to six criminal charges relating to spills at Holywell Sewage Pumping Station. Those matters will be dealt with at a later date.

Clarissa Newell, Area Environment Manager at the Environment Agency, said the scale of the offending demonstrated the seriousness of the failures.

She said: “Hundreds of pollution incidents occurred at some of the most scenic locations in Cornwall and Devon, including bathing waters, a designated Special Area of Conservation and a priority habitat.”

She said Environment Agency officers were continuing to monitor SWW and hold the company to account.

“SWW have promised the public that one pollution is too many, and our officers are out every day holding them to account,” she said. “We hope this record fine will influence a new approach for SWW, where protecting the environment takes priority in spending decisions.”

Ms Newell said the case had sent a clear message that pollution would not be tolerated.

“There’s been a clear message today to show that pollution will not be tolerated,” she said. “Today we’ve seen offences where alarms have not been responded to and data has been collected but not thought through.”

She said the prosecution had taken considerable time to reach court because of the complexity of the investigation.

“It has taken a long time for these offences to come to court due to the nature of the investigation,” she said. “We will get challenged by SWW every step of the way so every piece of science we use has to be done with calibrated instruments and with qualified people.”

SWW said the offences related to historic matters and stressed the scale of investment now being made to improve its network.

A spokesperson said: “These proceedings concern historic matters between 2015 and 2021 and the majority of the charges concerned the use of overflows in storm conditions.

“We’re investing £760 million to tackle storm overflows and have reduced spills by 17% in the last year alone, with spill duration down by 25%.”

The company said significant improvements had been made at the sites involved in the prosecution.

These included a new treatment process at Scarletts Well in Bodmin, upgrades at Harlyn pumping station and replacement pumps at Halvarras pumping station.

It also said work was taking place across catchments to remove surface water and illegal connections from the sewer network.

“We apologise for what happened in the past, and we remain focused on the future as we deliver record levels of investment to achieve cleaner rivers and seas across the South West by 2040, a decade ahead of national targets,” the spokesperson added.