Power failure was the reason why a Southern Water treatment station discharged what it called 'fully treated water', just 1km from the Isle of Wight's coast, earlier this week.

Usually, a 5km pipe is used, except in 'exceptional circumstances', which usually follows heavy rain. 

Instead, on some of the hottest days of the year, near the Isle of Wight's Blue Flag beach at Sandown, there were discharges in bathing areas.

It happened from around 1.15pm on Sunday until pipes returned to normal, at 12.40pm on Monday

There was also some confusion about the timings of the discharges, but the power cut meant false alarms were recorded on the firm's Beachbuoy monitoring website.

Southern Water told the County Press it was not a sewage spill and said: "Due to a power outage affecting our wastewater treatment works in Sandown on the Isle of Wight, fully treated water was released closer to the shore than usual, on Sunday and Monday.

"Following investigations, and coordination with the local authority and Environment Agency, no further action was required and the site is now running as normal."

Fully treated water must meet standards set by the Environment Agency.