‘GRASP the nettle and fix it’ a town councillor has told the government and South West Water after counting more than 2,000 sewage overflow spills into the Rivers Teign and Lemon.

Campaigning Newton Abbot Town Councillor Mike Joyce revealed this week that 2,146 spills have been recorded around the town’s many outlets from April 1, 2019, to March 31 of 2022.

He has ploughed through more than 40 pages of data he requested from the water company to arrive at the figures on the table illustrated below.

The largest number of spills – 555 – were recorded in Old Totnes Road from what is described as a CSO, or Combined Sewer Overflow.

There were 303 ‘Sewer System overflows’ (SSO) at Buckland St.

Mike, who is a member of the South Devon Alliance of councillors, said: ‘I’m calling on the government and water board to grasp the nettle and fix this. It’s a disgrace.’

A former South West Water employee, Mike insists: ‘It’s a service and should never have been privatised.

‘The service just hasn’t kept up with what it needs to provide in terms of sewage for all the homes that have been built in recent times around the town and the actual supply of fresh water to homes.

‘No new reservoir has been built in Devon since the 1980s, yet so many new homes have been built and here we go again we are faced with another hosepipe ban.

‘On top of that we have all the visitors, who are of course welcome, but no account is made of the extra people visiting us and the services required for them. Our water service all desperately needs fixing.’

A South West Water spokesperson said: ‘Reducing the use of storm overflows is one of our main priorities. This is an important issue for us, our customers and communities, as is the health of our rivers and seas.

‘We are reducing the use of storm overflows with strong investments across our network.

‘We know there is more to do, and that is why we are investing to dramatically reduce our use of storm overflows and reduce our impact on rivers by one-third by 2025.

‘We have now installed monitoring on 100% of our storm overflows, helping us to target our investment and interventions to reduce spill numbers.”

‘In terms of water resources, last year, the UK faced an extreme period of drought, which provided the biggest challenge to water resources in the South West for a generation. The South West region remains officially in drought.

‘We are investing in the future for how we manage water resources to increase supplies and resilience across the region, and support customers as they take action to reduce their usage through our Save Every Drop campaign.’

‘South West Water is investing £125 million in its water resources to secure resilience through desalination solutions, installing new pipelines and repurposing quarries. By 2025, we aim to significantly increase our water resources by 45% in Cornwall and 30% in Devon.

‘Our interventions so far have already delivered results, boosting resources by c.25% in Cornwall, and c.12% in Devon.