The Environment Agency (EA) has found ways of discarding “inconvenient” sampling data while South West Water (SWW) pumped untreated sewage water at Otter Heads over 3,000 times during May through September. The excuse is that a plan to resolve the issue by early autumn was agreed between EA and SWW. This work has yet to start. 

Owl has no confidence in either the Environment Agency or South West Water.

Petercrwilliams fightingpoolution.com 

The water quality at every bathing beach in the UK is sampled 20 times each Summer by the Environment Agency for E.Coli and other bacteria. The results of those samples define what water quality classification is awarded to that beach. Budleigh is rightfully proud of having been awarded ‘Excellent’ water quality status for the last 10 years.

Over that period, a number of samples were taken on a day when the Environment Agency had just published a ‘Pollution Risk Alert’, which is a warning that the water quality may be unsuitable for swimming. In all those cases, the sample taken on that day was included in the year-end water quality calculation.

If that ‘rule’ had been followed in 2024, Budleigh beach would definitely have lost our ‘Excellent’ status. In fact, with 40% of the most polluted samples from the last 4 years occurring in 2024, Budleigh’s water quality would now be 1/2 way between the ‘Good’ and ‘Sufficient’ categories.

To avoid that, the Environment Agency adopted a legal mechanism which allowed them to EXCLUDE two of the worst samples from their calculation. This was because those samples had been taken on a day when a ‘Pollution Risk Alert’ had been issued. In fact, there were 20 days between May and September when the EA issued one of these Pollution Warnings, it just so happened that the EA didn’t take a sample on most of those days.

As a result of excluding these two samples, the result was that Budleigh retained our ‘Excellent’ rating, but by the skinniest margin of just 2.5% away from dropping down a level.

One key factor in this is that throughout the May-September period, South West Water have been pumping a mix of untreated sewage and brook water from Lime Kiln pumping station out to Otter Head. In fact, SWW did this over 3,000 times in that period, with almost 20,000 litres being discharged every time. That’s equivalent to a 25m swimming pool full of untreated sewage mixed with stream water EVERY SINGLE DAY.

The worst part of this near-continuous discharge of untreated sewage is that a solution to the Lime Kiln issue was agreed with South West Water in July, and a plan published by them to resolve the problem. See the full details here.

The original proposal was for SWW to start the work on quieter streets in July, and complete the task by early Autumn. For some reason, these dates seem to have moved back and back – and there is now no clear, published plan when this work will be completed. Clearly there are considerations over timing of disruption to some roads in the town, but it’s very difficult to understand why this work could not have been phased over the last 5 months.

It’s not just an issue for South West Water, though they do carry the shame of having let the situation get this bad. It’s also a matter for our elected politicians to prioritise clearance for this work, and get the issue fully resolved.

It’s bad enough for Budleigh residents and visitors to have to play sewage-roulette each time they want to swim, but when there is a clear and defined solution to this issue, it’s unforgivable that this has not been resolved.