Following South West Water’s admission of 18 separate charges of water pollution across a six year period in Devon and Cornwall and its guilty plea at Plymouth Magistrates Court in March this year, the water firm is expected to be sentenced on 30 July 2026.
The prosecutions were brought by the Environment Agency - of the charges, 17 were for illegal discharge activities including sewage discharges.
One is for failing to take reasonable remedial measures following failure at a sewage pumping station. The utility was charged with breaching a condition of its Environmental Permit
between 28 August 2020 and 1 September 2020 at Hooe Lake Sewage Pumping Station in D Plymstock, Plymouth, Devon. A discharge of raw sewage occurred and there was a failure to take “all reasonable remedial measures to return the pumping station to normal operation” … “as soon as reasonably practicable after receipt of warning of failure or of breakdown of the pumping station.”
The prosecutions brought by the Environment Agency – in March the company pleaded guilty at Plymouth Magistrates Court to a catalogue of pollution-related charges spanning six years across Devon and Cornwall.
South West Water admitted to 18 separate charges of water pollution - of the charges, 17 are for illegal discharge activities including sewage discharges and one is for failing to take reasonable remedial measures following failure at a sewage pumping station.
The illegal discharge offences took place between January 2015 and July 2021 in five locations: Bodmin, Harlyn, Playing Place, Polperro and Plymouth. Three of the offences that took place occurred across an August Bank Holiday weekend.
Earlier this week on 2 June South West Water was fined £1.853 million - a record fine for a drinking water offence – at Exeter Magistrates’ Court and ordered to pay £75,000 following a prosecution by the Drinking Water Inspectorate for drinking water failures in Brixham.
With the UK government demanding a 50% reduction in storm overflow spills by 2029, the era of reactive management is over. Speaking in the House of Commons on 21 July 2025, then environment secretary Steve Reed said, “This Government will cut water companies’ sewage pollution in half by the end of the decade.”
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