Wednesday 19th February 2025

Website goes live!

To help our online campaign to end sewage pollution in Exmouth we are supporting our social media campaign with a more robust online presence where you will find news and documentation related to ESCAPE.

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Documents

Official ESCAPE documents.

Documents

EXTERNAL BRIEFING SWW EXMOUTH SEPTEMBER 2024
We have created this briefing to update communities and interested parties on Environment Agency actions regarding Water Quality in Exmouth.

COUNTING SPILLS AND DURATION HELP SHEET
A simple explanation of counting spills using the 12/24 method and calculating duration.

ESCAPE reference documents

ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT (EPA) 2023
Each year the Environment Agency publishes the EPA on all water companies. SWW has consistently been judged as one or two stars. It's own target is to be a four star company but there is little sign of progress on key indicators such as the number of pollution incidents where SWW is the worst performing in the country. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/water-and-sewerage-companies-in-england-environmental-performance-report-2023/south-west-water-epa-data-report-2023

BLUE FLAG CRITERIA
Blue Flag in an internationally recognised award for beaches that have achieved high standards. We are proud that Exmouth has been awarded Blue Flag status for a number of years. Water quality is one of the key criteria for judging blue flag beaches. This document outlines all the criteria used by Keep Britain Tidy who manage the scheme in the UK.

TRIBUNAL DECISION ESCAPE V SWW & ICO
In March 2023 SWW refused a request by ESCAPE to provide information on a spill. After only 4 mm of rainfall the CSOs in Exmouth spilled for 56 hours. ESCAPE challenged the refusal and appealed succesfully to the First Tier Tribunal. You can read the decision of the court here. Since this decision set a legal precident many others are now able to access environmental information from water companies.

STORM OVERFLOW PERFORMANCE COMMITMENTS PR24
Measuring the performance of storm overflows is a key indicator for both Ofwat and the Environment Agency. As part of the recent five year financial settlement all water companies have agreed to counting spills using a consistent method. This includes a calculation for when the Event Duration Monitor is offline or if the storm overflow is not fitted with an EDM. The methodolgy is set out in this document.

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