Thanet's Beaches; Southern Water's Sewage

Last week saw the second major sewage spillage this year onto Thanet's beaches  from Southern Water's Foreness Point Pumping Station. 9 of our beaches were closed for 24 hours because of this. Over the past 3 years there have been 6 major incidents of sewage spillages on to our beaches from the Foreness Point Pumping Station.

Last year Southern Water was fined £200,000 for a beach sewage  spillage in 2011. This year it is highly  likely that Southern Water will face prosecution for a sewage spillage incident in 2012 which led to the closure of all of Thanet's beaches for almost a week. How long will this go on for?  It's beginning to look as though we can expect sewage spillages on a regular basis, which for an area dependent on the visitor economy is not a good thing.

Southern Water claim to have spent £3million upgrading Foreness Point over the past couple of years. Clearly this has not worked and sewage spillage incidents continue. Thanet Council estimates that we need 12,000 more houses over the next 15 years which will place extra pressure on a sewage system which is obviously not working. Climate change means that we will have more and more extreme rainfall incidents in the future: which Southern Water blame for some of the sewage spillage  incidents. So come on Southern Water spend some of your £179million profits on properly upgrading and future proofing Foreness Point and stop dumping on our beaches!!