Portsmouth sewage discharges: Millions more to be spent by Southern Water to tackle discharges of sewage into the sea

The water regulator Ofwat has approved the spending of another £2.2 billion to upgrading networks for a number of projects across the UK, with £64m approved for Portsmouth Water which supplies water to the city’s homes and businesses, and £35m for Southern Water which is responsible for the area’s waste water.

A significant amount of the money will be spent trying to tackle incidents where sewage drains overflow into seas and rivers when it rains - with drains located along the south coast including Portsmouth, Hayling Island, Lee-on-the-Solent and Gosport. Collectively the companies across the country hope their efforts can reduce the number of spills by around 10,000 every year.

Southern Water, which had originally submitted a plan to Ofwat to spend an extra £50m before March 2025 to tackle to issue across Hampshire, the Isle of Wight and Sussex, welcomed the news. Although the approved figure is less than it originally intended to spend, it said the money will be used to scale up pilot projects to stop and slow surface and groundwater reaching our sewer system.

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It said it did not reflect a drop in ambition as the company was already making substantial investment of around £175m to reduce average spills from 20.2 per overflow to 18 per overflow by 2025. The extra £35m will help reducing spills by 420, it added.

Dr Nick Mills, Head of our Clean Rivers and Seas Task Force, said: ‘The approval to spend a further £35 million to reduce our use of storm overflows between now and March 2025 is a welcome short-term boost to our already industry-leading and innovative approach to tackling this issue across our region.

‘By channelling this extra investment through our pilot projects we can maximise learning on the Kent coast, the Isle of Wight, and the Harbours and South Downs areas and so we can continue to scale-up our use of nature-based and engineering solutions to stopping and slowing surface and ground water from entering our sewers. This is essential so we can understand what is effective and efficient ahead of a multiple billion pound programme across our region starting in 2025 which we plan to announce the details of this summer.

‘This extra investment is in addition to around £175 million already being spent on tackling storm overflows’.

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Portsmouth Water declined to comment on its plans for the money.