Photo description: A view over Plymouth Hoe from Plymouth Sound, UK. Photo by Patrick Owen PR on Unsplash.

South West Water was fined £7,867,733 at Plymouth Magistrates’ Court on 29 September in a case brought by the Environment Agency. The offences took place in Devon and Cornwall between January 2015 and July 2021. The company had pleaded guilty to 18 charges relating to incidents at Bodmin, Harlyn, Playing Place, Polperro and Plymouth. BBC News reports that 17 of the charges were for illegal discharge activities, including sewage discharges. The eighteenth was for failing to take reasonable remedial measures after a failure at a sewage pumping station. The Environment Agency said it was the largest fine ever imposed for environmental offences in the region. The court found that the company’s conduct repeatedly amounted to reckless failures. 

The offences 

Untreated sewage was discharged onto Harlyn beach in north Cornwall on 231 occasions. A sewage works near Bodmin spilled illegally into the River Camel 336 times in the seven years to March 2020. The judge said the number of spills that had gone undetected by the company was significant and concerning. The judge also highlighted untreated sewage pouring through the harbour wall at Polperro on a bank holiday weekend, and described the pollution overall as “horrendous”. In one incident, alarms were triggered but the company took around ten hours to attend, and South West Water was fined £1.1 million for that offence alone.  

Sentence and response 

The judge said she had taken into account that the offences pre-dated the company’s 2023 sentencing and the changes it had made since, but that only time would tell whether those changes would work. Clarissa Newell, Area Environment Manager at the Environment Agency, said the company had promised the public that one pollution was too many. She said the Agency hoped the fine would lead to a new approach, with protecting the environment taking priority in spending decisions. 

In a statement after sentencing, South West Water said: “We apologise for what happened in the past.” The company said the case concerned historic matters and that most of the spills involved the use of overflows in storm conditions. It said it was investing £760 million to tackle storm overflows, had cut spills by 17% and spill duration by 25% in the last year, and was aiming for cleaner rivers and seas across the South West by 2040. 

The fine is more than three times the £2.15 million South West Water was ordered to pay in 2023 for 13 offences between July 2016 and August 2020. On 2 June this year, the company was fined a record £1.85 million in a Drinking Water Inspectorate prosecution over the 2024 Cryptosporidium outbreak in Brixham. In September 2025, Ofwat agreed a £24 million enforcement package with the company over its management of wastewater treatment works, including £20 million to reduce spills from specific storm overflows. South West Water has also pleaded guilty to six further criminal charges relating to spills at Holywell Sewage Pumping Station, which are being dealt with separately.