{"id":268731,"date":"2025-07-17T07:30:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T07:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/268731\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T07:30:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T07:30:14","slug":"towns-sewage-nightmare-just-got-a-major-underground-fix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/268731\/","title":{"rendered":"Town&#8217;s sewage nightmare just got a major underground fix"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sewer upgrade project is already slashing storm spills in Honiton<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/0_LC_140725wastewater_05jpeg.jpg\" loading=\"eager\"  \/>Engineers insert new lining into the sewer pipe to seal and protect the system from leaks and overflows<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">A town plagued by one of the region\u2019s worst sewer overflow hotspots has seen spills slashed by more than 85 per cent after a major underground overhaul.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">South West Water has relined over 500 metres of sewer near <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.devonlive.com\/all-about\/honiton\" target=\"\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">Honiton<\/a> Wastewater Treatment Works \u2014 transforming it from the tenth worst site for spills in Devon and Cornwall last year into one of the region\u2019s most improved.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">The work, completed in January, has already seen the number of storm overflows drop from 219 in 2024 to just 31 so far in 2025. Engineers also upgraded 23 manhole covers to help stop groundwater leaking into the sewer system.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/0_LC_140725wastewater_04jpeg.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\"  \/>A CCTV camera is lowered into the sewer during inspections to identify areas vulnerable to groundwater infiltration.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Charlie <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.devonlive.com\/all-about\/ford\" target=\"\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">Ford<\/a>, project manager for South West Water, said: \u201cWe\u2019re really pleased with the results of the work we completed earlier this year and the impact it\u2019s having on our spill performance so far.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">\u201cKeeping groundwater out of our sewers helps to free up space within our wastewater treatment works and makes a real positive impact on the local environment here in Honiton and across the region where similar work is being carried out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">The upgrade started with CCTV inspections to identify leaking sections of pipe, which were then cleaned and relined using a watertight protective seal cured inside the pipe. Further CCTV checks confirmed the new lining had set properly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Relining reduces the amount of groundwater entering the sewer during wet <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.devonlive.com\/all-about\/weather\" target=\"\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">weather<\/a> \u2014 a key cause of storm overflows when the treatment works becomes overwhelmed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">The Honiton project is part of South West Water\u2019s wider \u00a3760 million \u201cTurning the Tide\u201d investment, which aims to cut storm overflows across the region and make the firm the first to hit the government\u2019s target of fewer than 10 spills per overflow per year by 2040 \u2014 ten years ahead of schedule.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sewer upgrade project is already slashing storm spills in HonitonEngineers insert new lining into the sewer pipe to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268732,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[728,548,41356,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-268731","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-ford","10":"tag-honiton","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114867406461567402","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}