South West Water

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

It is an absolute pleasure, Mr Henderson, to serve under your chairmanship, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp) and fellow Janner on securing this debate.

It is worth recalling what our water quality was back in the mid-1980s. For decades, the south-west had some of the cheapest water bills in the country for one simple reason: we just used to dump our sewage straight into the sea, with no real investment to end that practice until that time. Those who try to pretend that public ownership innately means great standards of environmental practice need to think again.

There has been major investment since that time, but it is another initiative that began under the coalition Government that has brought the issue of water quality back into the headlines. In 2013, only 7% of storm overflow outlets received any monitoring; as of the end of last year, 100% of those outlets receive monitoring. Put simply, the issue—the use of storm overflow outlets—has always existed, but it was just ignored and not monitored.

Bathing water quality is vital for Torbay, especially given the popularity of water sports and sea swimming among both residents and tourists. I have done some considerable work on the issue of bathing water quality since being elected to the House. Achievements so far include the completion of a major project at Torre Abbey sands by South West Water to ensure that our bay met the tougher legal bathing water standards introduced since my election in 2015. Those standards remain in place today.

To provide some background information, the majority of beaches in Torbay have outstanding bathing water quality, with 11 of the 15 registered beaches in the English Riviera classified as excellent for water quality in 2023. However, with Goodrington’s bathing water quality rated as sufficient, there is a need for further work to get all our beaches to a rating of good, then excellent.

To push forward action in the bay, over the last year I have met the chief executive of South West Water at Meadfoot beach, which does not have a storm overflow outlet, despite some claims that it does, and I met the company’s chief operating officer at Goodrington beach to discuss water quality across the bay and the next steps to invest in it.

During my most recent meeting, South West Water recognised the popularity of bathing at Goodrington and the need to improve the rating of Goodrington’s water quality. I pushed it for a target for the water quality being rated excellent by 2030, and to be fair to the company it agreed to that target. We will therefore see a £6-million programme of investment by 2030 in infrastructure near Goodrington and Paignton sands to help to achieve that goal. That work alone will not improve the standard of the bathing water at that beach to excellent, given the issues with items washed into the sea from surrounding parks and facilities, but it will provide further improvement. One thing we sometimes miss in this debate is the fact that water quality can be as easily affected by what is washed in from a park, particularly animal waste, as by whatever discharge may be coming from an outlet. The plan for Goodrington and Paignton is part of a £27-million plan for investment in the bay between now and 2030, with the clear goal of all our beaches reaching the excellent standard.

The Tor Bay Harbour Authority needs to stop using the same term for both rainfall drainage predictions and actual sewage releases—an issue which the previous Lib Dem-independent coalition-run council and the current Conservative leadership have raised regularly with the Environment Agency. The aim is to create clarity for residents, ensure that investment is targeted at sewage and end any misleading presentations of data by third parties.

I look forward to the Minister’s response, and I ask that he cover some specific points. First, what work will be done to hold South West Water to the commitments it has made to invest in further improvements in water quality? Secondly, alongside the wider plans for our region, how will local communities be able to hold South West Water and other partners, such as local councils, to pledges such as the ones recently made relating to Goodrington and Paignton sands? Finally, what steps will he take with the Environment Agency to create greater clarity about what is rainwater draining from land and what is an actual sewage spill? The aim is to bring clarity for the public and focus for resource investment.

Progress has been made, but there is more to do. We need to keep a focus on the issue and ensure that our water company is held to account, so that the progress residents expect to see is delivered.