South West Water teams are targeting storm overflows across its as part of a record £3.2 billion investment over the next five years.

The water company is investing more than £700 million to reduce storm overflows across the region as part of its record investment over the next five years.

South West Water’s Turning the Tide storm overflow investment programme is helping it to become the first water company to meet the Government’s target of less than 10 spills per year – 10 years ahead of deadline. The utility has also promised to tackle every bathing beach and reduce storm overflows at bathing and shellfish waters by 2030.

Turning the Tide is being delivered by South West Water’s new engineering alliance, Amplify which has brought together some of the country’s best engineering experts to reduce the use of storm overflows and help maintain the region’s excellent bathing waters.

Susan Davy, South West Water CEO, said:

“Everyone who works at South West Water, or with us, live in the regions we support, and they want to make a difference. Whilst reducing the use of storm overflows will take time, we are investing more than ever to deliver real change today."

One example of where South West Water is already seeing results is in Duloe, near Liskeard, where last year it invested in its highest spilling storm overflow from 2023.

Upgrades to the local wastewater treatment work’s storm weir and additional treatment capacity at the site has seen spills in the 10 months since the improvements were made reduce by over 93% compared to 2023.

South West Water’s WaterFit Live platform provides near real-time data about its storm overflows, and whether they are impacting the quality of bathing waters.