Photo by Bob Brewer
Southern Water has pleaded guilty to five pollution offences in north Kent, including discharges of untreated sewage into coastal waters that occurred just weeks after the company was handed what was then the largest criminal fine ever imposed on a water company.
The Environment Agency confirmed on 27 April that Southern Water entered guilty pleas at Medway Magistrates’ Court on 7 April to charges covering a series of incidents between July 2019 and August 2021. The offences involved untreated sewage, diesel and sewage debris released into Swalecliffe Brook, Faversham Creek and the sea near Whitstable. Sentencing will take place at the same court on a date yet to be confirmed.
A pattern of reoffending
The guilty pleas are particularly damaging for the company’s reputation given their timing. In 2021, Southern Water was fined £90 million after admitting thousands of illegal sewage discharges between 2010 and 2015, in what was then described as the largest criminal fine imposed on a water company. The original prosecution, the largest criminal investigation in the Environment Agency’s 25-year history at the time, covered 6,971 unpermitted discharges across Kent, Sussex and Hampshire.
Yet within weeks of that sentence being handed down, further pollution was occurring at the company’s Whitstable plants. On 6 August 2021, investigators found around 70 dead fish, including eels, in Swalecliffe Brook after untreated sewage poured into it and flowed into coastal waters. Canterbury City Council put up warning signs along Tankerton and Herne Bay beaches advising the public against swimming for nearly a week.
Five offences across three years
The charges span a series of distinct incidents. In July 2019, members of the public reported seeing and smelling oil in Swalecliffe Brook. Environment Agency officers attended and laid absorbent booms to contain what proved to be diesel leaking from a failed generator at Southern Water’s local wastewater treatment plant, which had entered the brook and reached the sea.
In March 2020, untreated sewage was released into Faversham Creek over three consecutive days after pumps at a separate wastewater station stopped working. On the same day, Swalecliffe Brook was again contaminated with sewage flowing under the main gates of the treatment plant, across a grass verge and into the watercourse. As the Environment Journal reported, a near-identical incident then occurred in October 2020.
‘A familiar pattern’
The Environment Agency did not hold back in its assessment. Dawn Theaker, the EA’s water industry regulation manager in the South East, said: “All of these pollution incidents could have been avoided if Southern Water had managed operations more carefully, and had in place the necessary checks to deal with problems when they occurred. It’s a familiar pattern with water companies. Always catching up with events.” She added that the agency would “keep Southern Water in its sights with more inspections, even tougher regulation and prosecution in the most serious cases.”
Southern Water told the BBC that pollution incidents were “never acceptable” and that it had been “working hard” to improve, claiming a 38% reduction in pollution incidents over the past five years. The company said it would be “inappropriate to comment further” while the court matter remained ongoing.
Since 2015, the Environment Agency has concluded more than 70 prosecutions against water and sewerage companies, securing fines of over £153 million.