Fresh calls for SWW boss to resign over sewage spills

'It’s a terrible and unacceptable situation'

Angry Devon councillors have called on South West Water chief executive Susan Davy to resign over a catalogue of problems including sewage spills and a stomach bug outbreak.

Water authority representatives faced a grilling from South Hams Council’s overview and scrutiny committee, and were told their company must do better.

Cllr Ged Yardy (Lib Dem, Dartmouth and East Dart) said many local people had lost confidence in the company.

He said the chief executive should consider standing down, and there should be a public inquiry into the water industry on a nationwide basis, similar to the inquiry into the conduct of the Post Office.

He also suggested that the privatised water companies should be nationalised, if only temporarily.

SWW officials had been summoned to answer questions about sewage  spilled into rivers and the sea in 2023, along with the cryptosporidium outbreak in Kingswear and Brixham this year.

Hundreds of people became unwell and thousands of households were advised to boil their water before drinking.

SWW said the outbreak had been a very rare event, and nothing in its sampling of local waters beforehand suggested any cause for concern before the Health and Safety Executive raised the alarm.

Louise Wainwright of the Avon River Champions community group said the South Hams had nearly 7,000 sewage spills in 2023, totalling more than 70,000 hours.

And she asked if SWW’s ‘ongoing investigation’ into the issue was just a euphemism for putting it ‘on the back burner’.

“I feel a sense of outrage that it has been allowed to get so bad,” she said.

Helen Dobby, SWW’s director of bioresources, said the company acknowledged that it had ‘ageing assets’, but had a programme of works stretching out over a number of years.

Of 17 bathing waters in the South Hams, 16 are rated ‘excellent’, she said, and the other was rated ‘good’.

“It’s about prioritising the most urgent and important jobs,” she added. “We are very focused, and we really are committed to making a difference.”

But Cllr Anna Presswell (Green, Totnes) replied: “It all sounds a bit sticking-plaster to me.”

Cllr Jacqi Hodgson (Green, Dartington and Staverton) said investors had sucked the privatised water company dry, and SWW is kicking its problems ‘into the long grass’.

And Cllr Lee Bonham (Lib Dem, Loddiswell and Aveton Gifford) went on: “Our residents need answers, and they need answers now. It’s a terrible and unacceptable situation.”