For nearly 50 years local water companies have failed to cut the crap hitting our beaches

On April 1, 2024, campaigners rallied at Folkestone’s Sunny Sands beach to protest over sewage dumping in our sea along our coastline, in our district.

Photo Ray Duff

These campaigners were calling for the renationalisation of water companies due to the fact Southern Water, among others, are pouring sewage into our precious seas and onto our beaches. This they said is because of a lack of investment into their water infrastructure and shareholders reaping rewards.

But it is not just Folkestone which is affected. St Marys Bay beaches were closed last year. However, we understand there will be a public meeting in New Romney on 10/4 @2.30 with the Environment Agency and Southern Water about the pollution of the Marsh beaches.

Untreated sewage hitting the beaches along our coastline is not new. It’s been happening for nearly 50 years.

In the summer of 1975 while “Listen to what the man said”, by Wings, sat at No 1, The New Folkestone Society ran an article in their magazine with the snappy title – Copt Point on the Rocks, in that article  they made it clear that sewage was hitting the sea and the beaches in Folkestone and elsewhere. The article says:

“the scheme would bring thousands of sea users to an area already contaminated by untreated sewage“.

This was happening under a nationalised industry due to the Water Act 1973 creating  Southern Water Authority (SWA) responsible for provide drinking water and disposing of sewage.

In 1989 the ten publicly owned water and sewerage authorities were privatised and SWA became a privately owned company called Southern Water Services Ltd.

In the summer of 1990, New Folkestone Society once again highlighted the issue of sewage hitting our beaches in an article titled Folkestone Matters – The Scandal of our dirty beaches. Their article states:

“For once again, for the third successive year, Folkestone’s beaches, like 108 others around the coast of U.K., have failed the minimum standards for bathing water laid down by the European Commission.

Every day a staggering 300 million gallons of sewage enters the seas around Britain.”

It’s clear in the run up to privatization, the publicly owned SWA was not doing its job.

In 1996, Southern Water was purchased in a hostile takeover bid by Scottish Power for £1.6bn

In  the summer of 1998, The New Folkestone Society again highlighted  the “filthy cesspit” after our beaches had failed again to meet the minimum standards for bathing water laid down by the European Commission. This was nine years after water privatisation; which happened in 1989.

In 2002, Scottish Power sold Southern Water to First Aqua Limited. They in turn sold Southern Water to Vivendi (19.9% stake) and The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) ( 80.1% stake).

While under the control of RBS In 2007, Ofwat announced its intention to fine Southern Water £20.3 million for ‘deliberate misreporting’ and failing to meet guaranteed standards of service to customers between 2005 and 2007. The misreporting resulted in Southern Water being able to raise its prices by more than it should have done.

In October 2007 the Royal Bank of Scotland sold Southern Water to, Greensands Investments for £4bn. Greensands were first based in the Cayman Islands, “the most notorious tax haven in the world“, then later moved to Jersey another offshore tax haven.

Between 2009 and 2011 while under the control of Greensands, Southern Water was fined £3,000 after it admitted polluting 2 km of the Sussex stream with raw sewage. A leak of sewage from Southern Water’s plant at Hurstpierpoint pumping station, West Sussex, lead to fines and costs of £7,200 in 2011.Again in 2011, Southern Water was fined £50,000 in for two offences relating to unscreened discharges into Langstone Harbour, Hampshire, between November 2009 and April 2010. And in 2012 Southern Water was ordered to pay £10,000 in fines and costs after sewage seeped into a stream at Beltinge in Kent.

In 2013 people in the UK were paying £2 billion more a year – or around £80 per household – than they would be if the water and sewerage supply was publicly financed. One third of the money spent on those water bills went to banks and investors as interest and dividends. 622 million were paid in dividends  by Southern Water between 2013 and 2017

In November 2014 Southern Water, still owned by Greensands in the Cayman Islands, were fined £500,000 and agreed to pay costs of £19,224 at Canterbury Crown Court after an Environment Agency investigation found that untreated sewage was discharged into the Swalecliffe Brook, polluting a 1.2 km stretch of the watercourse and killing local wildlife.

In December 2016 Southern Water was fined a record £2,000,000 for flooding beaches in Kent with raw sewage. As a result of a series of failures at a wastewater pumping station, raw sewage flooded on to beaches, forcing Thanet district council to close the beaches to the public for nine days including during the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee bank holiday weekend. The Environment Agency called the event “catastrophic”, with tampons, condoms and other debris costing more than £400,000 to clean up. The Environment Agency said that the discharge along a considerable length of coastline, resulted in a risk to public health and negative impact in an area heavily reliant on the tourism industry. A judge at Maidstone Crown Court said that Southern Water’s repeat offending was “wholly unacceptable”. Following the investigation, Southern Water director Simon Oates apologised unreservedly for the failure of the wastewater plant.

In June 2019, the Water Services Regulation Authority (Ofwat) announced its intentions to issue Southern Water with a financial penalty of £37.7 million reduced exceptionally to £3 million for significant breaches of its licence conditions and statutory duties. This is because it had failed to carry out its statutory duties as a sewerage undertaker and not effectively dealing with and treating wastewater. Southern Water agreed to pay customers approximately £123 million by 2024.

In 2020, Southern Water pleaded guilty to 51 offences related to polluting the water on the coasts of Kent and Sussex with untreated sewage between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2015. It was described as “the worst case brought by the Environment Agency in its history.” Over the period, the company made 8,400 illegal discharges of raw sewage into coastal waters. It also allowed storm tanks to be kept full and turn septic, instead of putting their contents through the required treatment process. In one plant alone, 746m litres were released into Southampton Water. This was two and half times more sewage being pumped into Britain’s seas than 1990.  Southern Water failed to report its illegal discharges to the regulator, but as the quality of shellfish on the Kent coast failed to meet quality standards due to the high levels of faecal contamination the Environment Agency began to investigate. The company was fined £90m for deliberately dumping billions of litres of raw sewage into the sea and the judge stated that the offences had been committed deliberately by Southern Water’s directors.

In August 2021, Australian financial services company Macquarie Group bought a majority stake in Southern Water. As part of the £1bn acquisition, £230m will be spent upgrading infrastructure.

Since 1989, Southern Water’s debt has gone from zero to £6bn by March 2022 and it is we who are paying the debt through our bills. 27% of your Southern Water bill has been spent servicing debt, 2019-2023 average. £1.7bn has been paid as dividends by Southern since 1990, thats equal to £775 per property, while the average annual bill proposed for 2030 is £674.

Regardless who has controlled the sewage over the last near 50 years, be it publicly or privately, the crap has kept on hitting our beaches. The campaigners who met on Sunny Sands on April 1, 2024, are right to raise the issue. However, renationalsing the industry won’t stop you from having to pay to fix the problems of sewage ended up in our local seas, created by under investment by Southern Water.

As they say in French

plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

The Shepway Vox Team

Journalism for the People NOT the Powerful