Southern Water has published its Clean Rivers and Seas Plan outlining proposals to spend more than £255million across the Isle of Wight to tackle the root cause of storm overflows – but there is a warning that it will result in a rise in household bills. Between 2025 and 2030, the utility company plans to spend a whopping £220.37million locally focusing on areas such as shellfish and bathing waters, and environmentally sensitive sites. It is estimated that approximately 151.4 hectares of impermeable land will need to be managed in the area by installing sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) such as planting trees and installing rain gardens, with some 13,981 water butts installed. Then, after the year 2030, Southern Water intends to spend an additional £35.49million on the Island with a further 20 hectares of managed land and 1,534 extra water butts. In total, it is planned that the Isle of Wight will see an investment of £255.86million over the next 27 years to improve the storm overflow situation, with 171.4 hectares of impermeable land managed and 15,515 water butts installed. Furthermore, 9,000 sustainable drainage systems will be installed for local businesses, schools and care homes. Improved drainage for 550 driveways is also planned, alongside the installation of 3,100 sustainable roadside rain gardens and tree pits to redirect and slow run-off entering the sewer. Southern Water is blaming climate change as the reason why the sewer system becomes overwhelmed, as it says large volumes of rain and groundwater entering the network is happening more frequently due to ‘erratic’ weather.
So, where does Southern Water plan to spend the money…?
2025-2030
- Bembridge and St Helens – £11.61million (to include 1.74km of sewer relining)
- Ryde and Binstead – £49.72million (including £37million at Appley Park)
- Wootton and Fishbourne – £8.8million
- The Bay – Sandown and Shanklin – £41.39million
- Newport – £44.28million
- East Cowes and Cowes – £44.71million
- West Wight – £19.85million (Porchfield to Freshwater)
2030
- Ryde (including Havenstreet) – £2.31million
- Brading – £2.34million
- Sandown £2.01million
- Newport – £2.77million
- Cowes – £8.22million
- Central Wight (Apse Heath, Langbridge, Godshill, Rookley) – £5.86million
- South Wight (Wroxall, Roud, Chale) – £5.87million (including 2.3km of sewer relining at Chale)
- West Wight (Shorwell, Brighstone, Newbridge, Freshwater) – £7.7million
A spokesperson for Southern Water has warned that bills will increase…
“We understand our customers want to see change now. We face tough choices in striking a balance between environmental protection and minimising the impact on bills for customers. Although customers will notice the impact reflected in their bills, the average water bill is one of the lowest household bills. “Some of the work will take a long time, but we are committed to investing the time and expertise to go as quickly as possible. This is why we are asking our customers for their feedback on our Clean Rivers and Seas Plan so they can tell us if they agree with how we are prioritising overflows in our region before we agree it with Ofwat, our regulator”.
Lawrence Gosden, CEO of Southern Water, has said:
“I’ve heard our customers’ concerns, and we take our impact on the environment seriously. We have a long-term strategy to 2050 that will restore and protect our regions’ rivers and coastal habitats and a large part of that will be to get to the root cause of storm overflows. “We cannot simply switch storm overflows off. But by implementing this Clean Rivers and Seas Plan and tackling the root cause, slowing the flow of rainwater going into the combined sewer, whilst increasing capacity of our network, we can reduce their use.” “Collaboration is key, and we cannot achieve the results needed alone. That is why we are calling on our customers and local authorities to work with us and adopt solutions like water butts or sustainable drainage systems, to channel rainwater safely and slowly back into the environment. Together, we can go faster and further, protecting our communities and our environment.”
Holy, I was wondering where all this came from, then I saw “but there is a warning that it will result in a rise in household bills.”, any excuse.
They want to put your bill up by a minimum of 55%! While restarting dividend payments to shareholders.
So how much extra is our water bills going up to pay for this? Won’t be paid for out of their profits thats for sure!
How about stopping the immigrants arriving, who then creates a situation whereby many mainland British to flee to places like the Isle of Wight to spend their latter years feeling safer, and in a society that they still recognise the language and ways of life.
As it is the steady but understandable migration to our Island is necessitating the building of ever more houses here, adding to the flooding and sewage.
Also the cost of keeping people who will never fund the cost of housing, educating, treating and funding their benefits add an unnecessary burden to us all in stealth taxes, which without would ease the burden of the increased water bills to come.
Take it out of your profits not our pockets!
Boom and up goes are bills, southern water your are a joke!! Pumping poop in the rivers and sea, not sorting out your drainage but all the management and shareholders get bonuses!!! Hold the management for this with custodial sentences for not doing what we pay for!!
So we have to all pay more for what these cretins should have been investing in for decades instead of paying their shareholders larger sums in dividends than they ought to have done.
Surely now is the time to halt the dividends and Bonuses for the management and use that to fund what they should have done in the first place.
Disgusting but no doubt the universal credit spongers will swerve this increase as they do all such by pleading poverty in their state funded homes, c.tax and health care.
No wonder employers cant get staff, all better off NOT working if having burdened society with clones now.
Over 27 yrs !! So don’t hold your breath … not exactly a priority response..
That means our water Bill’s will go up.
As predicted, the multi million pounds fine imposed on them will be lost in the increase in our bills.
And £255 million added to our bills making us the most expensive water in the country.
Plus paying interest on their loans used to pay dividends.
Don’t get me wrong, i want clean water. But we have already paid for that, not our fault they spent it on other things.
My bill has gone up by 50% already in the last few months, and don’t blame the environment its the extra houses that are filling up the sewers. If they were just honest with people instead of talking rubbish and pocketing huge sums of money maybe their customers would be more understanding of the issues but until they change their ways we will not change our minds on them.
No mention of drinking water. We are reliant on lousy water being pumped over from the mainland when we have plenty of good water available here. SW have put our drinking water supplies in a very precarious position, as shown by the recent losses of supply in Ventnor. Clearly, they need to spend some money getting our drinking water supplies back online or we could be in for further losses of water supply under future conditions.
Every big companies answer is to ‘put up the bills’ a simple solution eh..however, what happens when we, the general public, have no more money? … what then?
Another waste of money spend that we’ll all suffer for! They can’t be trusted to buy anything after the s-show flooding scandal!!!
They should ask the public opinion first we should have a day if it’s upping our bills! I for one want to know where my moneys going
A say I mean
They’ve had enough money over the years ripping us off with inflated charges, they should pay for it out of their own pocket along with their shareholders