Sewage monitors at some popular seaside destinations in England and Wales are faulty or not installed, Environment Agency data has revealed, meaning people could be swimming in human waste this summer without realising.
Seaside holidays this year have been marred by water companies pumping raw sewage into the ocean, with popular beaches in areas including Sussex and Devon having to close.
However, some holidaymakers could be swimming in it without warning, as new analysis by the Liberal Democrats has found that some monitors that are supposed to measure the amount of sewage being pumped into water at popular seaside spots are broken or not even installed.
Water companies monitor the dumping of sewage from storm overflows by using event duration monitors (EDMs), which record the frequency and timespan of spills.
The Environment Agency data for England and Wales shows that 1,802 monitors installed by water companies provided information for less than 90% of the time, with possible high spill counts in those periods, and that 1,717 storm overflows did not have a monitor installed.
Last year, for waterways, not just bathing status areas, a quarter of sewage discharges went unmonitored in total because the monitors were not working or were left uninstalled.
Across Devon and Cornwall, one in eight of the sewage monitors at designated bathing locations were either faulty or not installed.
Many popular seaside destinations were without monitors, including Long Rock, Cornwall; Littlehampton, Sussex; and Lee-on-Solent, Hampshire. Littlehampton pier is next to a sewage overflow, but there is no monitor yet installed at the site.
Sussex has been particularly badly hit by sewage pollution, with new figures showing that every single beach between Brighton and Hastings has been marred by waste. Bexhill and Normans Bay beaches remain closed after raw sewage was pumped into the sea. A spokesperson for Southern Water said the firm was “deeply sorry” and understood “the distress this causes”.
However, the situation could be worse than the figures show: at Seaford, in Sussex, the sewage monitor was only working a third of the time.
While available data shows sewage was dumped into designated bathing areas for 160,000 hours last year, the lack of monitoring means this number could be much higher.
The Liberal Democrat spokesperson for environment, food and rural affairs, Tim Farron, said: “This is a national scandal. Britain’s seaside resorts are being swamped by foul sewage, yet the government is nowhere to be found.
“Why on earth are Conservative ministers letting them get away with this? The public needs to know how safe, if at all, popular beaches are for swimming.”
There has been recent outcry over the lack of action on pollution from water companies, most of which have been failing on sewage targets, especially as those who run them have received increasingly large bonuses.
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Last week, it was revealed that annual bonuses paid to water company executives rose by 20% in 2021. Figures showed that executives received £100,000 on average in one-off payments on top of their salaries, during a period in which foul water was being pumped for 2.7m hours into England’s rivers and swimming spots.
In total the 22 water bosses paid themselves £24.8m, including £14.7m in bonuses, benefits and incentives, in 2021-22.
England’s highly paid water bosses are also able to work in second jobs, increasing their income, the Observer found. Five of the chief executives of England’s nine water and sewerage companies are also working as non-executive directors in other firms, sitting on remuneration committees.
Questions have also been raised over the handling of the drought by water companies, with hosepipe bans in place across England at the same time as the system remains plagued by leaks, wasting water.
The industry and its financial regulator, Ofwat, have said the water companies lost an average of 2,923.8m litres of water a day in 2021-22, equating to 1.06tn litres over the year, although Ofwat said the figures remained provisional until it has completed validation checks.
Campaigners have also pointed out that no new major reservoirs have been built in decades.
Water UK, which represents the water companies, said: “England is the first country in the world to have established a comprehensive monitoring programme for storm overflows. Every overflow will be monitored by the end of next year allowing companies to target investment where it will be most effective.
“Companies agree there is an urgent need for action to tackle the harm caused to the environment by spills from storm overflows and wastewater treatment works and are investing over £3bn to improve overflows as part of a wider national programme to improve the environment between 2020 and 2025.”