Budleigh Sewage action

Thanks to lack of action by @southwestwater, Budleigh has now lost its ‘Excellent’ bathing water status, and therefore almost certainly its ‘Blue Flag’ beach.
This was so predictable, and we’ve been flagging this up as a likely outcome for at least the last year.
Time for South West Water to fix the Lime Kiln issues, and for our local EDDC and town council council to apply proper pressure to make this happen.

South West Water’s PR team further trash company’s reputation by deflecting responsibility for Budleigh losing its ‘Excellent’ water rating and Blue Flag.

Here’s why SWW would do a lot better by owning up to their failures and focus on fixing their sewage infrastructure.

In response to questions from @devonlive reporter, SWWs PR team attempted to spin the blame by stating that “even if SWW discharges were completely stopped, this wouldn’t automatically lead to ‘excellent’ water quality because of ‘other factors’ (like agriculture they say..).

So let’s test that statement. Water quality classification is based on the last 4 years of beach samples taken by the Environment Agency, so our downgrade is based on 2022 through 2025. Note: A 4% improvement in water quality samples over that 4 years would have retained our Excellent rating and Blue Flag. So what have SWW contributed?

Lime Kiln

· In 2023, South West Water spent 7 months discharging untreated, unfiltered sewage (see the picture) into the Kersbrook at the back of the Lime Kiln pumping station, for an average 2 hours per day. Only a single instance was disclosed to the Environment Agency. All of this flowed out at the low water line, right in the middle of our Blue Flag beach

· Once the new outfall pipeline was commissioned, SWW switched to pumping this sewage out to Otter Head – which they did over 2,000 times in 2023, likely dumping around 18,000 litres each time.

· In 2024, SWW pumped untreated sewage out to Otter Head on 9,200 occasions, again with around 18,000 litres each time

· At a meeting we requested in July 2024, SWW finally admitted the ingress of water into the sewer system was overwhelming Lime Kiln pumping station, and that this needed to be stopped to halt the discharges. They also highlighted that the lower section of Fore street and Brook Road were the worst sections, which would be done after the sections further up the town. See attached extract from SWW’s own plans, presented in July 2024.

· In early 2025, the easier sections of relining were completed…. and then work stopped.

· Even though 2025 has been around 40% drier than 2024 – and SWW’s lining work did have some positive effect – Lime Kiln continued to discharge untreated sewage for a further 3,000 times up to the end of the sampling period in September.

River Otter

· In 2023, the main SWW overflows discharged untreated sewage into the River Otter and tributaries for over 8,000 hours, and in 2024, this increased to over 15,000 hours

· In spite of some relining work around Honiton, and 40% lower rainfall, this pattern has continued through 2025, with a further 4,400 hours up to the end of August

· All of this sewage flows down the River Otter to emerge at Otter Mouth, right next to the Blue Flag beach

Based on this miserable performance, it would be interesting to see SWW’s own data on why Budleigh would have lost our Excellent status without their dirty discharges. We are waiting..