FRESH pollution alerts were issued along Teignbridge’s coastline today, after South West Water discharged raw sewage into the sea at Holcombe Beach, Dawlish Town Beach and Coryton Cove. The sewage discharges were a result of the recent stormy weather battering Devon over the weekend.

Surfers Against Sewage, a marine conservation and anti-pollution charity, said: ‘Another day, same old crap. And yet creaking infrastructure and missed targets somehow equal big executive pay and shareholder payouts... Anyone else feel that something is amiss with this equation?’

The latest alert comes after a long summer and autumn of sewage and discontent, with demonstrations against the practice organised by Councillor Martin Wrigley last month. At the protest, Councillor Wrigley said: ‘It is an absolute disgrace, in this day there’s no excuse for having systems that are leaking so badly, killing our rivers and seas, it’s pure profit-driven mismanagement of the infrastructure. It’s just not acceptable, and we must do everything we can to hold South West Water to account.’

According to Top of the Poops, an organisation monitoring sewage discharges across the UK, the Central Devon constituency was the seventh worst for sewage dumps last year, with over 4,500 separate sewage dumps, amounting to over 43,000 hours of sewage pumping.

The Newton Abbot constituency saw over 2,000 sewage dumps, or 2,900 hours. The Environmental Agency gave South West Water its worst environmental rating of just one star, a score shared only with Southern Water.

However, Environmental Agency data suggests that the problem could be much worse than it appears. An analysis of their past data shows that some sewage discharge monitors, designed to measure the amount of sewage being pumped into our rivers and seas, are either faulty or not working at all.

According to the data, 31% of South West Water’s monitors were either not installed or faulty in 2021, the second highest in the country. These included three sewer overflow points that discharged at Dawlish Town Beach and one at Teignmouth Beach, one of which was working less than half the time it was meant to. South West Water blamed this on a ‘communications failure’.

Additionally, many sewage monitors are now being turned off for winter, making it difficult to gauge the full extent of the pollution.

A South West Water spokesperson said: ‘After listening to and talking with customers, communities and campaigners right across our region, in April we announced WaterFit, our plans to protect rivers and seas together.

‘WaterFit will dramatically reduce our use of storm overflows, maintain our region’s excellent bathing water quality standards all year round and reduce and then remove our impact on river water quality by 2030. Working with partners and customers WaterFit will begin to deliver the change we all want to see.’