LAST week, the South West has received almost no rain. But South West Water saw their storm overflow systems activated for a total of 206 hours!

The data below has kindly been provided by WaterWatch and shows that even though there was no reason, the SW region saw 353 activations of their storm overflow systems. It beggars belief how they can even call it a "storm" overflow system when it is used even in the driest weeks in record.

The previous week we saw 106 hours after just 3.5mm of rain, people were horrified and wanted answers.

I've had a response from SWW: "WaterFit Live provides near real time data for all our storm overflows, this shows whether the overflow is active and for how long.

“This information helps customers and stakeholders understand how the wastewater network is operating and supports greater transparency around storm overflows. We are required to provide data in near real time, and we are currently not able to validate this before it is published.

“This means occasional false readings can be published. These false readings may occur due to factors such as leaves, twigs, bubbles, or foam.

“These can all trigger an Event Duration Monitor (EDM) and indicate an overflow is operating when it is not. A full validation is undertaken on a monthly basis, and the data is amended to reflect these false readings."

I wrote back to express my dissatisfaction that I'd just been sent a stock response and received the following:

"Storm overflows may activate for a number of reasons and therefore each activation needs to be investigated on a case-by-case basis and as such I am unable to provide you with a definitive answer to your question.

“However, should there be specific activations that are of concern please come back to me and I will be happy to investigate.

“It is also worth noting that we review the data from our EDMs and publish our first assured data on our website monthly in arrears.

“In addition, we are required to produce a further regulatory return on a calendar year basis which is submitted to the Environment Agency. This calendar year return goes through a further quality assurance check before being published on gov.uk on the link below."

I am concerned with every single one of these activations!

To be blunt, it is not our problem if the legally-mandated monitoring data contains some false readings.

The public have a right to trust the data and if SWW think there are inaccuracies then they need to spend some of their hundreds of millions of pounds of annual profit improving their reporting system.

As far as I'm concerned, these numbers are accurate and should be treated exactly as they appear - South West Water have dumped raw sewage into our rivers for 206 hours in the driest week of the year.

Fix your leaks. Fix your reporting system. Stop paying out massive dividends and executive bonuses. Stop putting our bills up. And stop destroying our natural environment for your profit.

Ed Tyldesley

County Councillor for Chulmleigh and Landkey