“We watched as the beaches emptied, and the car parks emptied, and there was a sense of ‘this cannot keep happening’.”
It was the worst possible time for yet another serious sewage pollution incident in Exmouth. On Wednesday, 14 August 2024 – right in the middle of the summer tourist season – a sewage pipe burst near the town’s main pumping station, leaking waste into a stream and then into the sea. Red flags went up on the beach, and lifeguards used loudspeakers to warn people to stay out of the water.
Nicky Nicholls, who runs Exmouth’s beachfront watersports centre and eco-hub Sideshore, was among the many people who watched the familiar, dispiriting scenario unfold. This was nothing new for Exmouth. The town had been in the news a lot lately, for all the wrong reasons, with repeated beach closures caused by sewage – sometimes because of leaks, more often because of storm overflows after rainfall. Earlier that year, local sea swimmer Jo Bateman’s one-woman legal action against South West Water over the repeated pollution of bathing water had gone viral on social media. Exmouth – famous for its two-mile stretch of sandy beach and the red-cliff gateway to the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site – was in danger of becoming known for its dirty seas. Nobody wanted that.
“So over a couple of days I walked the length of the seafront and talked to as many of the businesses as I could,” said Nicky, who is the Community Lead for Sideshore CIC.
“They were all in various stages from angry to upset, some were crying when I spoke to them, saying ‘we’re 30 to 40 per cent down on business, we can’t survive like this’.
“Because Jo had started her legal action with Leigh Day Solicitors, we wondered if there was a case for businesses to bring.”
That’s how it started – one of the first community legal actions of its kind against a water company.
The landmark legal ruling that paved the way
After Nicky’s informal chats with the traders, she arranged an initial meeting with Jo Bateman’s lawyers, Leigh Day Solicitors, and then two public meetings were held last autumn. The potential claimants were told that a landmark decision by the Supreme Court just a few weeks earlier, in July 2024, had paved the way for water companies to be held accountable for the wide-ranging impact of sewage pollution. In the Manchester Ship Canal v United Utilities case, the court had ruled that private citizens can bring actions against under the laws of nuisance or trespass in respect of polluting discharges, even if there has been no negligence or misconduct.
In Exmouth the response was strong, and continues to grow. About 1,100 people have signed up to join the legal action so far, comprising residents and businesses in Exmouth, Budleigh Salterton, Lympstone and the Exe Estuary. As well as traders, property owners, beachgoers, kayakers and sea swimmers, the claimants include many residents whose lives have been disrupted by convoys of tankers travelling through Exmouth town centre and some housing areas – essentially acting as an above-ground sewage network when a pump fails or a pipe bursts.
The community-led group claim will argue that it is unlawful for South West Water to continue allowing sewage discharges to cause a nuisance and interfere with the public rights of members of the local community to use beaches, the sea and rivers. The legal action will insist that the company does whatever is necessary to stop the sewage spills and discharges, including investment in infrastructure. The group are also claiming compensation, but the general consensus is that it’s not about the money.
Building up to breaking point
Like the pressure on Exmouth’s overloaded sewage system, the anger among Exmouth residents had been building up for some time. It began to spill over into a call for action when the environmental information and pressure group End Sewage Convoys and Pollution Exmouth (ESCAPE) started spreading the word, via its Facebook page, about the link between the sewage network problems and the tankers making their way to and from the treatment plant, which were upsetting a large number of people.
Geoff Crawford from ESCAPE – who is also a sea swimmer and one of the group claimants – said: “The water pollution annoys people because of the environmental damage, and because they want to swim, but the majority of people are not really impacted by it. The thing about the tankers is that it does – they can physically see it, it really makes them aware that something has broken, something has gone wrong pollution is happening. It’s a very visible physical thing.
“What initially started to happen on Facebook was, people were saying ‘what are all these tankers doing, why are there so many tankers in town?’ and other people were saying ‘go and take a look at this (the ESCAPE) Facebook page’, and once they found out that it was sewage, people became quite angry. They can envisage what’s happening, that this stuff is being transported above ground.”
Because of ESCAPE’s role in raising awareness of the issues and galvanising public opinion, as well as liaising with South West Water, the Environment Agency and local MPs, Nicky describes the group as ‘the unsung heroes’ of the Exmouth campaign.
Fighting for nature and the environment
The campaign is being watched closely by environmental organisations, both national and local. Friends of the River Exe (FORE,) who jointly organised last May’s Paddle-out Protest around Exmouth beach, are among the many supporters.
One of FORE’s coordinators Mary Culhane said:
“I dread to think what (the pollution) is doing for the overwintering birds on the estuary and the marine life below the surface.
“When we joined forces with Surfers Against Sewage and Transition Exmouth last year with Paddle-out, hundreds of locals took to the water to show their frustration at the pollution, but still there’s no improvement. In 2024 in Exmouth we were advised against entering the water for 138 out of 365 days last year. And so far, this year hasn’t been any better.
“Hopefully this legal action will bring the change we so desperately need so that Exmouth can be proud of its beautiful beach and estuary again, and so that other parts of the country can be inspired to follow in our footsteps and challenge their water companies too.”
Nicky from Sideshore feels the same:
“This isn’t what we wanted to be doing, but we so passionately want our beach back, and to be able to advertise that we’ve got beautiful clean sea.
“I think for me I’m just furious that this is our biggest natural asset; water is the essence of life, isn’t it?
“It’s so awful that nature isn’t supported in law; we can’t bring this action on behalf of nature, but as the only species that does have these laws, we’ve got such a responsibility. We can choose to get out of the water, but there is so much life in there that doesn’t have that opportunity.
“We hope that when it’s fixed we can say, ‘Well, we were at the front of the queue fighting, and now we’ve got the cleanest beach – so come to us’.
In a statement responding to the impending legal action, South West Water said:
“Like all our customers, we care deeply about the quality of our region’s bathing waters and fully understand how important this is to residents, businesses and visitors in Exmouth.
“We are working with our regulatory partners to bring forward our planned improvements in Exmouth. This includes upgrading our pumping stations and treatment works to significantly reduce the number of spills.
“We are continuing to do everything we can to protect the environment as part of our £38 million investment in Exmouth.”
The company has been saying this for years.
The legal claimants and their many supporters feel that it’s time to put Exmouth back into the news and into the legal history books – for all the right reasons.
Nicholas Smith, associate solicitor with the Leigh Day legal team, said: “Water pollution, and particularly the poor performance of the UK’s water companies, has become a major environmental issue in the UK in the last year.
“With this legal action being one of the first of its kind, many aspects of it are potentially ground-breaking. By being a part of it, members of the Exmouth community are among the first to take a collective legal stand against sewage pollution.
“The outcome of the legal action could have a wide-ranging impact on how environmental justice can be legally pursued across the UK. If successful, it could enable people all over the UK to similarly hold alleged polluters accountable for the harm it is claimed they cause to people, businesses and the environment.”
