“Yet again, the response is essentially another slap on the wrist fine, which a company of this size can absorb as simply the cost of doing business. The hard-working South West Water technicians and other staff I meet are being completely let down by rotten executives.

“I strongly believe we urgently need much tougher penalties for repeat offenders, including prison sentences for those responsible for overseeing serious and illegal sewage dumping.” – Ben Maguire, LibDem MP for North Cornwall

[This comes after SWW was fined £1.8m over a parasite outbreak in July and fined more than £2.1 after admitting causing pollution in the region in 2023.]

Steven Morris www.theguardian.com/

A water company has been ordered to pay a record fine of almost £8m for hundreds of sewage spills at popular bathing spots and sensitive habitats in Cornwall and Devon.

On one occasion, untreated sewage gushed through a harbour wall on a bank holiday weekend but South West Water (SWW) engineers took 10 hours to attend.

Sewage was also discharged into the River Camel, which is home to otter and Atlantic salmon and is popular with birdwatchers and sailors.

Fining SWW £7,867,733 at Plymouth magistrates court – the largest fine for environmental offences in the region – District Judge Matson said incidents of pollution could not be tolerated.

The judge repeatedly found the company’s conduct amounted to reckless failures in management systems and response to known risks.

In August 2019, untreated sewage gushed through the harbour wall on a bank holiday weekend at Polperro harbour on the south coast of Cornwall.

Between January 2016 and July 2021, there were 231 illegal sewage discharges at Harlyn on the north coast of Cornwall, not far from the foodie hotspot of Padstow.

In another case, SWW failed to provide a permanent fix for a sewer that entered a creek in Plymouth, despite multiple formal warnings from the Environment Agency over several years.

The company pleaded guilty to 18 charges, 17 for illegal water discharge activities and one for failing to take reasonable remedial measures after a failure at a pumping station.

Matson described the offences as “horrendous, very significant incidents of pollution” and said they should never happen again.

Despite the company pleading guilty, the judge found that SWW had tried to minimise its role in the offending rather than being remorseful and accepting full responsibility.

Clarissa Newell, area environment manager at the Environment Agency, which led the prosecution, 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. We hope this record fine will influence a new approach for South West Water.”

The fine came as the prime minister, Andy Burnham, described water as a symbol of what had gone wrong with Britain and promised to reverse Margaret Thatcher’s “ideological ban” on the public ownership of water companies

Responding to the fine, the environment secretary, Angela Eagle, said: “For six years, South West Water repeatedly broke the law. That’s why we’re overhauling the water system to give the public control, with tougher regulation, stronger enforcement and greater accountability, so water companies deliver for customers and the environment.”

The Liberal Democrat MP for North Cornwall, Ben Maguire, criticised the punishment. He said: “Yet again, the response is essentially another slap on the wrist fine, which a company of this size can absorb as simply the cost of doing business. The hard-working South West Water technicians and other staff I meet are being completely let down by rotten executives.

“I strongly believe we urgently need much tougher penalties for repeat offenders, including prison sentences for those responsible for overseeing serious and illegal sewage dumping.”

SWW described the offences as “historic” and said: “The majority of the charges concerned the use of overflows in storm conditions. We’re investing £760m to tackle storm overflows and have reduced spills by 17% in the last year alone, with spill duration down by 25%. Significant improvements have been made across the sites concerned. We apologise for what happened in the past, and we remain focused on the future as we deliver record levels of investment.”

The water company was ordered to pay £329,993 costs.

In response to Exmouth post office closure sparks fears for vulnerable residents she writes:

During my interview with the BBC reporter which was screened on 28th September about the closure of the Post Offices, I commented on the deplorable quality of the contracts which the Department of Business and Trade had drawn up with franchisees of the Post Office. How was it possible for a company to walk away from its responsibility to run a vital public service and give barely six weeks notice of the store closure? Additionally, It seems that there was no oversight of W H Smith’s quality of service when managers were instructed by Head Office to divert Post Office staff to work on the shop floor when there were staff shortages, leaving customers without post office services sometimes for several days at a time. Where were the penalty clauses for failure to deliver post office services five and half days a week? Furthermore,why was there no requirement to give at least a year’s notice that the store and therefore the post office would close, thus enabling alternative arrangements to be made to continue the post office service?

This failed privatisation of the post office has cast a long shadow over towns up and down the country. This is not a little local difficulty; over 170 W H Smith outlets took on the franchise for the post office and now many towns throughout the UK will lose their vital post office services.

I think the Labour Government needs to take control of this situation created by the previous administration and renationalise all the post offices which should never have been farmed out to a failing retails outlet in the first place.

Kate Wilcox