Isle of Wight beaches on sewage spill list of shame

Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), in its annual report on sewage discharge, has named Cowes beach at number two, Gurnard at four and top tourist destination Yaverland at five.

Holiday beaches at Whitecliff Bay, Shanklin, Seagrove and Sandown are also in the top ten.

Ironically,six of the seven beaches are listed as having Excellent water quality overall by SAS. Only Gurnard gets a Good status.

Table showing the dry spills and water quality rating. (Image: Surfers Against Sewage.)

Of the three in the top five, Cowes suffered dry spills (those not carried out during heavy rain) on seven occasions, Gurnard five times and Yaverland four.

Throughout the UK 146 such spills occurred between October 2021 and September 2022.

Scroll down to see Yaverland's beautiful beach video

According to SAS, water companies could be guilty of illegal activity as regulations stipulate that outflows should only occur during ‘unusually heavy rainfall’.

Read more: 

• Gurnard protest against sewage overflows
• MP defends actions to tackle Southern Water
• Southern Water promises significant change

It says Southern Water, which is responsible for the Isle of Wight, was responsible for four times as many dry spills as the next worst offender.

The Isle of Wight has seen protests throughout the year about sewage discharges but the poor performance in the dry spuills category will come as a shock.

MP Bob Seely has joined protesters and has called on Southern Water to clean up its act, saying: “Water firms HAVE spilled too much into rivers and beaches. They need to clean up their act.

“When the ground-breaking environment laws went through last year, we persuaded Southern Water to the Isle of Wight a test case for national best practice.”

Recently the utility company said it was taking measures to clean up its act.

"This includes investing £2 billion (around £1,000 per household) between 2020-25, more than our regulatory allowance, to significantly improve our performance.

"We are on-track to reduce pollutions by 40 per cent, compared to 2021, with much still to be done to maintain this to the end of the year, and we are also industry leading in self-reporting." 

The SAS report revealed between October 2021 and September 2022, SAS issued 9,216 sewage pollution alerts via its Safer Seas & Rivers Service (SSRS), which covers over 450 beach and river spots across the UK.

A quarter (2,053) of these alerts were during the 2022 bathing season. 

What sewage campaigners have said

Amy Slack, head of campaigns and policy at SAS, said: “Surfers Against Sewage has been campaigning on water quality for the last three decades, making it abundantly clear to water companies that their actions are detrimental to both environmental and public health.

"Yet water companies are still choosing to pour sewage into the ocean and rivers across the country, make us quite literally sick of sewage."

Dr Anne Leonard, an environmental epidemiologist and microbiologist based at the University of Exeter, said: “We’ve known for over one hundred years that sewage contains disease-causing microorganisms, and that ingesting water contaminated with this kind of waste causes infections.

“These infections may be mild, self-limiting illnesses but they can also be really severe infections that require medical treatment. “

Surfers Against Sewage's six-point plan

With the release of its annual report, SAS is reiterating six key demands to end sewage discharge into bathing waters by 2030:

• An enhanced water-quality testing regime.
• The establishment of 200 designated inland bathing waters.
• World-leading water quality legislation with ambitious legally binding targets and well-funded regulators.
• To end untreated sewage discharge in all bathing waters and to reduce all untreated sewage discharges by 90%.
• Nature-based solutions to sewage pollution.
• Investment from water companies and other systemic polluters. We need water companies to invest urgently in their sewage infrastructure and end the use of sewage overflows.