‘Dirty business isn’t a drama, it’s a reality’, an anti-sewage protester said outside County Hall this week before Isle of Wight councillors decided what to do next about Southern Water.
Islanders lined up outside the council’s headquarters in Newport on Wednesday (15th July) in an attempt to get the local authority to declare no confidence in the utility firm, which this week pleaded guilty to pollution in the River Test – a major Island water source.
A motion declaring no confidence in a range of Southern Water’s current work ultimately failed to gather enough votes but an alternative text from County Hall’s leader Jonathan Bacon and Cllr Les Kirkby of Reform UK was agreed.
The company said it takes concerns about its performance seriously and claims it is investing millions of pounds to reduce storm overflows, improve infrastructure and enhance environmental performance across the Island.
Chani Courtney, a Ryde town councillor and senior communities officer at Surfers Against Sewage, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) the current water system is ‘broken’.
She claimed that on the Isle of Wight since the beginning of the year, Southern Water has allowed over 4,300 hours of spills on the East Wight and over 7,400 hours on the West Wight.
“We want the Clean Water Bill going through Parliament in October to really think about the ownership model”, Cllr Courtney said. “We want to look at nationalisation, municipal ownership, charitable interest company.
“The regional electorate representatives passing through the best that their powers possibly can, and showing that we don’t support the current system, that it isn’t working, will give impetus when the MPs engage with the parliamentary debate.”
Jack Keen, a 32-year-old environmental scientist from Cowes, volunteers regularly for the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, restoring seagrass. He said Southern Water ‘isn’t helping’.
“They’ve been given the powers to self‑govern, and they’re not self‑governing”, Mr Keen said. “They are not updating the infrastructure, which is desperately needed…just releasing raw sewage, which is hampering the restoration efforts trying to restore the Solent ecosystem.”
Sally Spencer meanwhile said passing a no confidence motion will in the long term ‘make improvements’.
“It’s not going to happen overnight, but it’s got to make improvements”, she said.
Asked about government intervention regarding Southern Water, Ms Spencer said she would like ‘a lot of regulation’ but also thought it probably would not go far enough.
“Public ownership would be the answer, if at all possible,” she added.
A Southern Water spokesperson said:
“We take concerns about our performance seriously and recognise our customers on the Isle of Wight want to see further improvements to the wastewater network.
“Our chief executive met with Isle of Wight councillors last month and set out a series of commitments focused on reducing spills, strengthening engagement, improving communication and increasing transparency. This will be helped by more than £67m of investment across the island.
“Over the last three years the number of storm overflows on the Isle of Wight have gone down and we will shortly announce further measures to continue our progress and improve the resilience of our network.”
