Poo floats past shops through town centre after sewage overflow (original) (raw)

Human faeces, wet wipes and other sewage were left floating outside shops in a seaside town when it overflowed in the heavy rain. Customers and diners were forced to walk through raw sewage after blocked sewers became overwhelmed in Cliff Road, Newquay.

South West Water (SWW) said it was alerted to the incident at 6.30pm on Saturday (October 5) and managed to bring the issue under control at 11.30pm. However the utility company confirmed its engineers were called out again to Cliff Road the next morning when more sewage poured onto the pavement again.

At the time, SWW said: "We have a tanker on the way to stop the flooding and clear the blockage to allow the sewer to flow freely. We are working fast to get this fixed and once the flooding has been stopped a full clean up of the area which has been flooded will be completed."

The sewage spill along the busy street certainly didn't go unnoticed. Many residents in the seaside town took to social media to vent their anger and mock the utility company.

One resident wrote on Facebook: "Human excrement, wipes and paper all clogged up in the drains and across the road and pavements this morning. No one from the council or SWW there doing anything about it."

He added: "Drains clogged at street level with wet wipes and paper and human excrement. Absolutely disgusting."

Another added: "Right next to cafes and bars. I hope they can sue SWW for this." Another joked about SWW's inability to even dump the sewage in the sea nearby, adding: "You think with it being that close to the sea, South West Water would just dump it in the sea."

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South West Water, part of the Exeter-based Pennon Group, regularly dumps sewage in our rivers and seas so it does not back up into people's homes and businesses when the drains get overwhelmed in heavy rain. Legislation states sewage overflows - which combine household sewage with surface run-off water - should only be used in ‘exceptional circumstances’.

In 2021 alone, along with the other water companies in England and Wales, they discharged sewage into rivers and the sea over 370,000 times. That’s 2.7 million hours of sewage ending up on beaches and river banks.

Earlier this year SWW was rated as having the worst sewage pollution record ever. It was also rated as "the worst performing company for pollution incidents in the Environmental Performance Assessment's 13-year history". The report by the Environment Agency (EA), similar to an Ofsted report for schools or a Care Quality Commission report for health and social care settings, gave the company two stars.

The poor rating for SWW was mostly due to the incidents of sewage being dumped in our rivers and sea whether legally or illegally. The EA's report showed that SWW has had one of the worst records in the country for pollution incidents every year for the past 13 years.

In April 2023, the company appeared before a court facing a series of charges relating to illegal water discharge activities and breaches of environmental permits at locations across Cornwall and Plymouth between 2015 and 2021. They were fined £2.1m for the environmental breaches.

A fellow resident also took the mick out of the company following the Newquay Cliff Road incident. He wrote: "That’s not sewage that’s South West Water crystal clear drinking water." Another joked: "South west water are the best. I really hope this doesn't affect next year's big bonuses for the CEO."

Another resident summed it all up, saying: "This is not good enough with our water rates!!! South West Water are continuing to be an utter disgrace."

A spokeswoman for South West Water said: "We removed the blockage and cleaned the area up by 9pm last night (Sunday October 6). We will now carry out further work to identify how this blockage occurred so it does not happen again."

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