South West Water has appeared at Plymouth Magistrates’ Court today (17 April) where it faced 30 charges relating to illegal water discharge activities and breaches of environmental permits.
The charges relate to wastewater treatment works, sewage pumping stations and its sewer network at locations across Cornwall and Plymouth.
The Environment Agency alleges that South West Water is responsible for “many hundreds” of illegal discharges at seven sites across Cornwall and one in Plymouth over a six-year period.
The regulator submitted more than 200,000 pages of evidence as part of its prosecution.
Proceedings have been adjourned to 3 July for pleas to be entered.
A spokesperson for South West Water said that the company would not be commenting while proceedings are ongoing.
South West Water was upgraded from a one star rating to a two star rating (out of four) in the regulator’s last annual Environmental performance assessment report, published last July, meaning that the “company requires improvement”.
South West had previously been aiming for a four-star environmental rating in 2024, but last month its parent company Pennon said that it had abandoned that ambition and that it expects to receive a two-star rating when the Environment Agency publishes its annual report later this year.
Instead, South West is aiming to achieve the four-star rating in 2025.
However, this was the first year with complete event duration monitor (EDM) coverage, which was a legal requirement by the end of 2023 for all CSOs in England.
Rainfall during the year was also significantly higher year-on-year with some areas receiving more than 20% higher rainfall than the long-term average.
The regulator reported the average number of spills per overflow rose from 23 in 2022, to 33 last year.
For last year, the Agency’s data shows 40% of storm overflows spilled fewer than 10 times in 2023 compared to 48% in 2022.
In 2023, 13.9% of storm overflows did not spill at all, compared to 18% in 2022 and 13% in 2020.