South West Water has been fined £1.85 million after pleading guilty to criminal offences relating to the contamination of drinking water in Brixham in 2024, when a cryptosporidiosis parasite outbreak affected around 16,000 properties in the area.
The outbreak led to hundreds of recorded cases of illness and a boil water notice which affected up to 39,000 residents for a period of eight weeks. At least two residents were admitted to hospital.
The case against South West Water, brought by the Drinking Water Inspectorate, was heard at Exeter Magistrates’ Court in March.
An inspectorate investigation found that Cryptosporidium from animal faeces entered the drinking water supply network on agricultural land, probably via a faulty air valve which was covered in mud.
Another case brought by the Environment Agency, to which South West Water also pleaded guilty, was concluded at Plymouth Magistrates’ Court in the same month.
The charges in this case concerned hundreds of sewage spills and extended discharges at five sites across Devon and Cornwall between 2015 and 2021. Three of the offences that took place occurred across an August Bank Holiday weekend. Sentencing is expected at the end of July.
Exeter Law Courts
The month before these cases came to court, law firm Leigh Day said that legal action it is taking against South West Water and its parent company Pennon Group over sewage pollution in Exmouth, Budleigh Salterton and Lympstone had been expanded to include Dawlish, Sidmouth, Teignmouth, Newquay and Penzance.
The action is the first environmental group legal claim by a coastal community against a water company to tackle sewage pollution in the UK.
On Wednesday this week, Devon County Council leader Julian Brazil sought to add the authority’s weight to the pressure being brought to bear. He said he had asked officers to explore whether the county council could also take legal action against the company alongside regulators in “relation to ongoing concerns about sewage discharges and water quality in the county”.
The county council is to host a Devon Water Quality Summit this autumn aimed at the creation of a transparent Devon Water Quality Action Plan involving regulators, water companies, district councils, landowners, community groups and others involved in protecting and improving the region’s rivers, streams, estuaries and coastal waters.
Photo: The Sewage Campaign Network.
These actions follow numerous pollution incidents and other potentially illegal sewage spills by South West Water.
During the 2024-25 reporting year, the company recorded 109 pollution incidents per 10,000km of sewer – more than any other water company in England and Wales, five times the industry-wide target and more than double the industry average.
An investigation by The Times then found that of close to 8,000 potentially illegal water company sewage discharges – those made on dry days – which took place in the first half of 2025, over a quarter were made by South West Water.
Data published last July showed that serious pollution incidents by water companies had risen by 60% in 2024. The Environment Agency said that South West Water’s performance on this metric had deteriorated between 2016 and 2024.
In the same month Ofwat imposed a £24 million enforcement package on South West Water after it found that the company had “failed to meet it legal obligations in managing its wastewater treatment works and network.”
Photo: Surfers Against Sewage.
The following day, South West Water owner Pennon Group announced that Susan Davy had decided to retire as CEO and give up her board seat after eighteen years at the company. In 2023-24 she had received £562,000 in pay and other benefits.
Then in April 2025 South West Water increased customer bills by a third immediately after the Environment Agency published data showing that the company had released sewage for more hours than any other water company in England and Wales during 2024.
It was subsequently ordered to fix scores of faults across its network including leaking pipes, cracked tanks, seeping liquids and faulty monitoring equipment which were discovered during 2025-26 inspections at 860 of the water company’s sites in Devon and Cornwall.
This week Pennon Group reported underlying pre-tax profits of more than £135 million in its 2025-26 year-end results.
The £1.85 million penalty handed down last week is not the first time South West Water has been punished this way by a court.
In April 2023, the company was fined £2.1 million for environmental offences that took place between 2016 and 2020 at five sewage works sites in Devon and Cornwall.
Following a spill at one site in Axminster, thousands of fish, including some protected species, died in the River Axe.
Delivering her sentence, the judge said that “incidents of pollution will no longer be tolerated by these courts”.
This week Devon County Council leader Julian Brazil went further, saying: “There’s criminal activity going on here … maybe some people should be locked up.”
