Councillors call for tougher action against sewage in Cornwall
A motion has been passed to work towards ending all sewage discharges
Last updated 29th Nov 2022
Cornwall Councillors are calling for tougher action to crack down on water companies and farmers polluting Cornish rivers and beaches.
The motion was debated at Cornwall Council's full meeting today (Tuesday 29th November) and has since passed.
It comes from Liberal Democrat councillors who are calling for an end to all sewage discharges affecting bathing waters, shellfish harvesting areas and high-priority nature sites by 2030.
Dominic Fairman, the Liberal Democrat Councillor for St Teath, proposed a motion calling on the Government to impose legally binding targets to end untreated sewage discharges, strengthen testing of water quality and provide more support to farmers to reduce pollution.
He said: “The fact that raw sewage is regularly discharged into our rivers and seas is abhorrent.
"When the water companies were privatised in 1989, all their debts were wiped out to help them to meet their legal duty to only discharge sewage into the environment in “exceptional circumstances.
"The “exceptional circumstance” clause has been completely abused"
"For instance in my division the overflow for the Treatment Works in Delabole discharges into the River Allen over 250 days of the year for a total of 2000 hours".
Leigh Frost, the Liberal Democrat Councilor for Bodmin St Petroc’s says that affordable housing in Bodmin has been blocked because the local sewage treatment works can’t handle their waste, yet changes to rules for septic tanks have actually led to more pollution entering the River Camel.
He said: “Septic tank sewage from the whole of East Cornwall and West Devon must now be tankered to Nanstallon, but in 2021 this facility discharged for a total of 943 hours into the River Camel.
"So, we find ourselves in the horrible position of being in the midst of a housing crisis, unable to build homes for local people that desperately need them due to its impact on the Camel, yet on the other hand we are expected to take in waste from other areas to clean up!
"The situation stinks worse than the sludge in those tankers!"
Colin Martin, the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate for South East Cornwall, says that local residents are paying the price for Government failures: “In 2016, the Conservative Government cut funding for the Environment Agency by 75%, meaning that most farms are never inspected and many sewage outlets are not monitored.
"Surfers Against Sewage recently named South East Cornwall in the top ten in its “Top of the Poops” ranking for the most polluted rivers in England, despite the fact that water bills here are twice as high as those in London.
Council resolves to request the Leader of the Council to write to:
- The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, calling for the Government to make the above commitments ahead of COP 15.
- The Chairperson of the Parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee to advocate for greater enforcement of existing regulatory powers.
- The Chief Executive of South West Water, calling for urgent action to address the impact of waste-water discharges on our local rivers, bathing waters and shellfish harvesting areas, and to fund Investment through the curbing of bonuses and dividends rather than passing the cost on to the consumer.
- The Westcountry Rivers Trust expressing this Council’s support for the development of their Citizen Science Investigations water quality programme across Cornwall.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have been contacted for a response.