Anger over Devon sewage discharge figures
South West Water says it is doing its best to keep track of ‘storm overflow’ sewage spills
South West Water says it is doing its best to keep track of ‘storm overflow’ sewage spills despite claims that its monitoring systems are not up to the job.
Devon County councillor Ed Tyldesley (Lib Dem, Chulmleigh and Landkey) has called on South West Water (SWW) to act after its storm overflows were reported as discharging sewage into rivers and the sea for a combined total of almost 300 hours last week.
Cllr Tyldesley said the company’s own figures showed 664 separate spills across 184 sites despite just 16.5mm of rain across the South West, an average figure for a normal August week.
But, he said, he had been told by the water company that its live monitoring data could sometimes contain false readings.
“That leaves two possibilities,” he said. “Either the SWW data are correct, and sewage was discharged into our rivers and seas for 299 hours in a single week, or their legally mandated monitoring system is so unreliable that hundreds of apparent sewage spills are being reported to the public which may not actually have happened.
“Neither is remotely acceptable. If the monitors are wrong, fix the monitors. If the discharges are real, fix the sewage network.
“What SWW cannot keep doing is publishing these extraordinary figures and then shrugging their shoulders when people ask what happened.”
In 2025 SWW was responsible for 46,164 sewage spills into the rivers and seas of the South West – a duration of 407,006 hours of continuous spilling. However, that figure was down on 2024 which was in turn down on 2023, although SWW still recorded the longest total spill duration of any water company in England.
Cllr Tyldesley said that in North Devon alone, community clean water campaigners from WaterWatch had recorded 50 spill events across 27 sites last week, including discharges into the Little Dart and River Mole.
“We pay some of the highest water bills in the country,” he added. “We should not have to choose between a sewage system that cannot cope and a monitoring system we cannot trust.
“Based on last year’s figures, SWW will have made roughly £2.4 million in profit last week.
Enough excuses, enough dividends, enough bonuses – put the money into the infrastructure, fix the leaks, fix the sewage works and stop treating our rivers like a toilet.”
A spokesperson for SWW said the company published near real-time monitoring data, which is validated before being used for regulatory reporting.
The spokesperson went on: “Storm overflow activations can happen for a range of reasons and aren’t determined by rainfall figures alone.
“We continue to invest in our monitoring and are spending record amounts to reduce storm overflow use across the region. We’re reviewing the locations raised by the councillor so we can provide a full response.”