SOUTH West Water has pledged to clean up its act over sewage spills in the River Tamar after Calstock Parish Council accused the water company of withholding details of when the spills are happening.

The water company said it ‘recognised there was more to do’ on keeping sewage out of the river after being accused of blocking the parish council’s mission to obtain data about the sewage discharged into the Tamar in 2021.

There were over 1,000 sewage spills into the Calstock stretch of the Tamar from South West Water’s sewage overflows in the parish last year, lasting for a total of 12,951 hours. These should only allow spillage into the river at times of heavy rainfall to prevent sewage backing up into homes and on the streets. However, the scale and frequency of the incidents, suggests they are occurring other times too.

In a bid to prove this, the parish council has asked SWW for dates on when each sewage spill occurred, which the council plans to check against the Environment Agency figures on heavy rainfall.

South West Water however has refused on the grounds that there was a ‘risk of undue influence’ to the water industry regulators, OFWAT’s current investigation of the use of overflows.

The council believes the public interest should override this.

Cllr Andrew Brown said: ‘The Environment Agency had no problem about giving us the rainfall figures for 2021. We know exactly how much rain there was every 15 minutes during the year.’

Cllr Alastair Tinto said: ‘There is a massive public interest in having this information. We have just carried out a survey of Calstock car park to see why it floods so badly – one of the most concerning findings was that raw sewage was seen in a storm manhole cover, the chamber of which discharged directly into the river! Every user of this car park is entitled to know how much and how often sewage is going into the river and perhaps also into the car park.’

The parish council has applied to Defra to get a Designated Bathing Water Status for the Tamar in Calstock.

Councillor Richard Newton Chance, heading up this application, said: ‘Our surveys for this application showed just how many people use the river for swimming, sailing and canoeing. They deserve to know how safe their water is.’

Parish council chair Cllr Jim Wakem: ‘This refusal to cooperate is very disappointing. What are they trying to hide? We will continue to pursue this request for information and to clean up our river for the sake of all the people who use it.

‘We have a busy waterfront used by children and adults. We have a rowing and gig club we also have a number of moorings and a pontoon which is used by many visitors to our village. Sewage is toxic — to people, to wildlife, and to the environment. We don’t want it in our river, or any river.’

Responding, a South West Water spokesperson said: ‘We know reducing storm overflow usage is an important issue for customers, as is the health of our rivers and seas – and it is one of our key priorities too.

‘We have been working hard to reduce the impact of storm overflows, and in this year’s bathing season, we reduced spills by 50% on last year, with the duration of those spills down by 75%. However, we recognise there is more to do.

‘Our largest environmental investment programme in 15 years is now well underway, delivering benefits for customers and the environment, and in April we launched WaterFit to go further and faster.

‘Storm overflows are a legacy of our combined sewage system from the 19th century, but through WaterFit we will dramatically reduce our use of storm overflows and reduce our impact on rivers by one-third by 2025.’

Citing regulations on not influencing the OFWAT investigation into sewage overflows into rivers, the spokesperson added: ‘We continue to liaise with the council as necessary.’