Countdown is commencing! Southern Water is getting ready for the bathing water season

A giant countdown clock is on display in Southern Water’s Operational Control Centre – ticking down the days until the start of the Environment Agency’s bathing water season.

From Thursday 15 May, the Agency will start collecting and testing samples from designated bathing waters across the country – including our own 87 locations, dotted along the region’s 700 miles of coast.

Protecting and enhancing the quality of these waters is so important to us and that is why we are spending £1 billion a year on environmental improvement over the next five years.

And by working in partnership with the EA, councils, landowners, NGOs and other stakeholders, we can ensure this investment makes an enormous difference by taking a holistic approach to challenges when they arise.

Our Bathing Water Lead Rob Butson explains:

“The public understand that as well as impact from storm overflows, there are many factors which influence bathing water – road and agricultural run-off, wildlife, and beach users to name a few."

“But we cannot ask our partners to undertake work to protect and improve water quality unless we can show we’re doing all we can from our side.”

That’s why in the run-up to the start of the season we’re carrying out extra health checks on 255 of our pumping stations and other infrastructure critical to water quality – making sure they are in the best possible shape.

Regular maintenance is part and parcel of running a wastewater network with 49,000km of pipes, more than 3,000 pumping stations and 367 wastewater treatment plants, but having an in-depth look at key sites is critical to avoid nasty surprises long before they rear their head.

At one pumping station visit, worn mechanical parts in the shape of impellors and gaskets were found indicating the site had been dealing with unusual amounts of ‘unflushable’ items, such as nappies, sanitary products and wet wipes. An expert was quickly sent to fix the issue before it could get worse.

The same teams have been carrying out thousands of metres of CCTV surveys of our networks, to check for leaks and other problems.

But we know that during the bathing water season, our communities understandably want up-to-date information about any storm overflow impact to the sea at their local beach before they take a paddle.

That’s why we’ve updated our near real-time storm overflow monitoring service, Rivers and Seas Watch, to keep water users across the south informed about storm overflow impact to water quality. Rivers and Seas Watch was built alongside customers and relevant experts to ensure it's as useful and user friendly as possible.

Covering every single one of over 1,000 storm overflow outfalls in our region, the service is relied on by water users, community groups and campaign groups such as Surfers Against Sewage, who use the data for their own storm overflow service.

The latest upgrade introduces improvements based on expert suggestions, including an upgrade to our tidal modelling process to enhance the technical accuracy. This enables us to pinpoint accurately the area that may be affected by a release, giving the public peace of mind about any possible impact on water quality, so they can make informed decisions about where to enjoy our many coastal bathing waters.

Luke Hyttner, Product Owner of Rivers and Seas Watch said:

We’re delighted to be releasing this significant upgrade to the Rivers and Seas Watch service. Our community have told us that providing accurate information about the impact of storm overflows on our region’s bathing waters is a high priority for them. We've worked extensively with relevant experts and put a lot of time into developing an accurate and reliable service that provides value for our community.