Southern Water Gives the Region's Piers an Annual Health Check

Salt water and sea breezes are great for mental health – but terrible for seaside infrastructure like metal pipes.

And nowhere feels the corrosive effects as much as our region’s iconic piers, along our beautiful coastline.

That’s why we are continuing our rolling programme of inspections, peering under these structures, to check if any private wastewater pipes from restaurants, bars and public toilets are shipshape – finding and fixing any nasty leaks quickly.

Our Open Water Lead, Rob Butson, said: 

“These surveys are hugely important. Recently, we uncovered a leaky sewer beneath the pier in Southsea, Hampshire, which was impacting the bathing water below. Luckily, Portsmouth City Council sprang into action to fund a £42,000 repair.

“Our ongoing surveys include physical checks, and blowing smoke through sewer pipes to spot gaps – the method has been a successful way of finding issues that require repairs"

At the start of December it was the turn of Worthing’s Victorian edifice and also found to be in good condition.

Councillor Vicki Wells a member of Worthing BC’s environment committee and a passionate evangelist for works to improve bathing water in the area said:

“The pier inspection programme is incredibly valuable for our coastline. These regular checks help us spot any issues with wastewater pipes early, so we can work with partners to fix them before they affect our beaches or bathing water. It’s a simple piece of work that makes a big difference to protecting the places our communities enjoy.”

In the New Year, Brighton’s iconic Palace Pier will get a visit and the inspection cycle will start again.

Rob added:

“The inspection programme costs us around £5,000 per pier a year – and it’s money well spent. Discovering issues and working with the appropriate parties to get the problem fixed is another exmaple of working together to improve bathing water quality.".

The pier inspections are just a small part of our rolling programme to improve and protect bathing water, which also includes the detective work of our illegal connections team – who hunt down toilets, showers and washing machines wrongly connected to surface water drains.

We also survey thousands of metres of sewer pipe in seaside spots to ensure our pipes are in good condition and act swiftly to fix cracks and breaks.

Meanwhile, every spring we carry out pre bathing water season health checks on pumping stations and treatment works along our coastline to ensure everything is working as it should.

Rob said:

“Perhaps the most important work is the cooperation between us, councils, drainage boards and the Environment Agency to track down sources of contamination. None of us can solve things alone.”