Sewage reduction plans for Lyme Regis welcomed by campaigners

South West Water has announced that as part of their £760 million Turning the Tide Programme they will be upgrading the storage and drainage system in Lyme Regis to cut sewage discharges. River Lim Action has welcomed partial confirmation of the plans, which it had been pressing for.

“We urgently need more storage so that rainfall is slowed down when it enters the system, and better separation of rain water and sewage”, said Vicki Elcoate of the River Lim Action group. “There were over 800 hours of permitted sewage discharges into the river last year and we are pleased that investment is being made to reduce this. However, we are  disappointed that although the upgrade of Uplyme Sewage Treatment Works is included in the schedule, no date or details have been given. Increased storage capacity here is essential to reducing sewage discharges”.

South West Water’s new dedicated webpage for the project says that work on the separation trenches will start this autumn, after a period of investigations starting this month.   There will be bigger storm storage tanks installed at five locations starting next March.

“This will cause some traffic disruption in the town” said Vicki Elcoate, “but we hope that the short term pain will be worth the long run gain of cleaner water in the river and less sewage impact on our two bathing beaches.  We still look forward to hearing SWW plans to address leaks, misconnections and broken pipes which our monitors report are causing high levels of bacteria. These still need addressing as a matter of urgency”.

Note to editors

South West Water’s new webpage: https://www.southwestwater.co.uk/about-us/what-we-do/improving-your-service/projects-and-investment/lyme-regis