{"id":24205,"date":"2026-04-28T15:43:46","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T15:43:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/24205\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T15:43:46","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T15:43:46","slug":"southern-water-pleads-guilty-to-pollution-offences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/24205\/","title":{"rendered":"Southern Water pleads guilty to pollution offences"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Repeated sewage dumps, diesel spillages and pollution releases by Southern Water led to dead fish washing up and effluent flowing through streets.<\/p>\n

The Environment Agency (EA) charged the company with a series of pollution incidents in Faversham, Whitstable and Herne Bay between 2019 and 2021.<\/p>\n

\"Oil\"OilOil being held back by boom. Picture: Environment Agency<\/p>\n

In one of the most serious cases, investigators found about 70 dead fish, including eels, after untreated sewage was discharged into Swalecliffe Brook on August 6, 2021 and flowed into coastal waters, significantly affecting water quality.<\/p>\n

In the first of five offences Southern Water has been prosecuted for, people reported seeing and smelling oil in Swalecliffe Brook, located between Whitstable and Herne Bay, in July 2019.<\/p>\n

EA staff were sent to the scene and tried to contain what turned out to be diesel from Southern Water\u2019s local wastewater treatment plant when a generator failed and started leaking.<\/p>\n

But the pollution had entered the brook and reached the sea, prompting warnings for people and pets to stay out of the water.<\/p>\n

Shortly before the start of the pandemic in 2020, another two inland waterways were polluted.<\/p>\n

\"Untreated\"UntreatedUntreated sewage was released into Faversham Creek. Stock picture<\/p>\n

Across three days from March 5, untreated sewage was released into Faversham Creek from a separate wastewater station after pumps stopped working.<\/p>\n

On the same day, Swalecliffe Brook was contaminated again, this time with sewage flowing into the sea.<\/p>\n

Sewage and debris was found flowing under the main gates of the Swalecliffe treatment plant in Brook Road, over a grass verge and into the watercourse.<\/p>\n

An almost identical incident then happened in October 2020, when effluent once again flowed into the road and into the brook.<\/p>\n

Medway Magistrates\u2019 Court heard that more pollution incidents occurred at Southern Water plants in Whitstable in August 2021, with waste discharged either directly into the sea or via Swalecliffe Brook.<\/p>\n

Canterbury City Council to put up signs along beaches at Tankerton and Herne Bay, warning against swimming for nearly a week afterwards.<\/p>\n

The incidents occurred only weeks after the company was fined a record \u00a390 million for thousands of illegal sewage discharges off the south coast.<\/p>\n

The EA charged Southern Water with five pollution offences relating to the Swalecliffe and Faversham treatment works incidents.<\/p>\n

The firm pleaded guilty to all the matters at Medway Magistrates\u2019 Court on April 7 and will be sentenced at the same court at a later date.<\/p>\n

Dawn Theaker, the EA\u2019s water industry regulation manager in the South East, said: \u201cAll of these pollution incidents could have been avoided if Southern Water had managed operations more carefully, and had in place the necessary checks to deal with problems when they occurred.<\/p>\n

\"A\"AA sewage flooded street. Picture: Environment Agency\"Dead\"DeadDead eels in the water at Swalecliffe Brook.Picture: Environment Agency<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a familiar pattern with water companies. Always catching up with events.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe EA will keep Southern Water in its sights with more inspections, even tougher regulation and prosecution in the most serious cases.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since 2015, the EA has concluded more than 70 prosecutions against water and sewerage companies, securing fines of over \u00a3153 million.<\/p>\n

A Southern Water spokesperson said: \u201cThese cases brought by the EA are historical in nature, dating back almost seven years to 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince then, there has been significant investment across our assets, powered by more than \u00a32.5 billion of new equity from our shareholders.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe pleaded guilty to the charges relating to 2019-21 and are cooperating fully with the legal process in the magistrates\u2019 court, which is ongoing, so it would be inappropriate to comment further.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Repeated sewage dumps, diesel spillages and pollution releases by Southern Water led to dead fish washing up and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[141,61,528,1537,309,5,6,1094],"class_list":{"0":"post-24205","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-courts","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-faversham","12":"tag-kent","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-whitstable"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116483107225123414","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}