FAVWAT PRESS RELEASE

1st September 2026

Southern Water was fined £90 million in 2021 for criminal discharges of sewage between 2010 and 2015. On the 17th July this year they were fined another £7 million for discharges between 2019 and 2020 into Faversham Creek and the sea off Swalecliffe, all as a consequence of criminal negligence in the maintenance of their Sewage Works. In the face of this it is hard to sustain hope that the privatised water companies are committed to cleaning up their act. As things stand it seems cheaper for them to take the hit than to invest in what’s needed to protect our waterways.

Favwat, Faversham and Villages Water Quality Testing came into existence in 2021 in reaction to this cynical criminality on the part of the water industry and the defunding of the regulator, the Environment Agency, by the then government. Volunteer testing of Faversham and Oare Creeks and their feeder streams was put in place along with a program of public education.

Our focus then was on the misuse of storm sewers that regularly spilled sewage, whether or not there was a storm. We have been encouraged that Southern Water abandoned the false solution of building larger storm overflow tanks and instead have, through their Pathfinder Project, begun to address the problem at source, separating out foul sewage from surface water and by managing the flow of surface water with sustainable drainage systems. There is a long way to go, but it is in the right direction

Faversham Creek continues to suffer from worrying levels of nutrients: nitrates and phosphates, and quite shocking levels of E.coli. Our attention has shifted to the contribution of the Sewage works which legally pours enormous volumes of partially treated sewage, carrying extremely high concentrations of faecal matter into the Creek along with the nutrients that can damage ecosystems. It is significant that the fine on this occasion is because of their failure to maintain the treatment infrastructure of the sewage works.

We have argued that the Faversham sewage treatment works needs tertiary treatment. It pumps 4 olympic swimming pools of partially treated sewage a day into a closed tidal body of water running into the middle of town one way and then out into the highly sensitive protected waters of the Swale the other. To clean the sewage effectively requires both UV light to remove bacteria and chemical treatment to remove nutrients. Faversham has neither.

In addition we have presented a plan for a sustainable wetland treatment system that could further cleanse the effluent and are pleased that Southern Water have shown some interest in this. However without continued public pressure none of these potential improvements are likely to take place. We call on all the water companies to clean up their act now and ask the government to ensure this happens. Another few million pounds in fines for a multi million pound industry, is too little to effect meaningful change, and too late for the plants, the fish and invertebrates, and the people already impacted by polluted water.