Southern Water urged to ‘put their hands in their pockets’ as sewage signs installed across seafront

The signs, installed and paid for by Portsmouth City Council, inform residents of storm overflow releases by Southern Water. They are considered the first step in putting pressure on the water company to inform the public over discharges.

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Councillor Steve Pitt, cabinet member for culture, leisure and economic development, said: ‘It's so important that the public are aware of the ongoing issues with Southern Water discharging storm overflows and sewage into our coastal waters. It is equally important that our large number of sea swimmers are able to make informed decisions when accessing the water.

‘I have been delighted to work with council officers and Stop the Sewage Southsea to introduce these signs. The council will continue to campaign alongside them to keep up the pressure on Southern Water.’

The signs have been put up at Eastney Point toilets, Speaker’s Corner – near The Briny restaurant – the D-Day Story car park toilets, the shelter behind Southsea Beach Café and St George’s Road toilets. They will be updated on weekdays from October to March, and daily between April and September.

They show if there has been any sewage releases in the last 24 or 72 hours in Southsea East, Eastney and Langstone Harbour. Southern Water sparked a lot of anger over sewage discharges, with campaign groups being in staunch opposition.

Sarah Shreeve, co-founder of Stop the Sewage Southsea, said: ‘Whilst it remains completely unacceptable that these signs are needed due to ongoing pollution of the Solent, we are so grateful to Cllr Pitt and Portsmouth City Council for listening to our group and finding a way to help us keep swimmers, regular water users, tourists and visitors aware of recent discharges, so that they can make an informed decision about how to use the Solent safely.’

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A row has brewing between the company and PCC after leader Gerald Vernon-Jackson lobbied them to pay for computerised warning signs. The current information boards are updated physically and have QR codes on them which residents can scan and visit the Southern Water beachbuoy app – showing them live updates on sewage discharges.

The aim is to have displays highlighting discharges as they happen. Cllr Pitt said this would be the second phase of a plan and is hoping to continue to press Southern Water to pay for them.

He told The News: ‘We funded these signs for speed. We identified five sites which are council owned, and linked it with the green and clean team, so they are able to do the updates quickly.

‘We’re looking to keep the pressure up on Southern Water and get them to put their hand in their pocket and pay for the computerised signs.’

In October Southern Water said it was ‘open to the idea' of helping fund electronic signs and said the company 'would welcome the opportunity to explore this further'.

It said that it had also installed two real-time water quality monitoring buoys at two of our bathing water sites, including one near to Hayling Island.

According to Environment Agency data, Southern Water pumped sewage into Langstone Harbour for almost 900 hours in 2021.

It was handed a record £90m fine last year after admitting to 6,971 incidents of illegal sewage dumping from 17 sites, including in Hampshire, between 2010 and 2015.