SWW updates regarding sewage problems in Porthleven

August 8, 2019

News

SWW updates regarding sewage problems in Porthleven

The Town Council have been working, in conjunction with other local organisations, with South West Water to identify the cause of sanitary items being found in the harbour. These are some of the updates we have received:

2nd August:
Dear Trevor, Corrie,

You may be aware that SWW have had faults on the sewer rising main on which repairs have recently been carried out. Unfortunately we are now aware of further faults over a length of the pipe that have the potential to cause pollution to the watercourse and disrupt the harbour area. Please note that this in a entirely separate matter to that of the misconnections that have been identified within the village and communication in relation to this matter will continue through Mike Shannon and Georgina Stevens.

As this is a critical time of year within the town, it has been decided that the best immediate course of action is to proactively install a temporary pipe to remove any need to tanker from the harbour and minimise disruptions to local businesses, residents and holiday makers. We apologise if any inconvenience is caused through traffic management however I hope you will appreciate that this will eliminate the potential disruption to the town that would be caused in the event of a further failure to the sewer main.

Glanville Environmental plan to install a temporary pipe from behind the Boatyard, to near the entrance to the cricket club. For safe working there will need to be some traffic lights at the Mill Lane junction, but they will be manually controlled to ensure smooth traffic flow. Glanville are liaising with Cornwall Council Highways team to ensure this is conducted in the most appropriate manner.

Glanville will begin preparations for this work on Monday and expect the work to take around 2 weeks and we will ensure that disruption is kept to a minimum throughout this period.

Access for traffic and pedestrians will be maintained at all time and once in place there will be no affect to either foot or vehicular traffic.

South West Water & Glanville Environmental will also be attending site on Monday of next week in order to speak with local businesses to explain the situation.

31st July:
Dear Ms Thompson

Thank you for your email which we received on 24 July 2019, regarding Porthleven Harbour, and for speaking with me on 31 July 2019.

I can confirm I’ve spoken with Mike Shannon, who advised the Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) Survey which is being undertaken is going to take some time.

I’m sorry this was not the answer you were looking for; however, I do appreciate you want to get this resolved.

24th July:
Dear Ms Thompson

Thank you for your email which we received on 16 July 2019, regarding Porthleven Harbour.

I can confirm I’ve spoken with Mike Shannon on 18 July 2019, he has spoken with Glanvilles who will be attending this week to carry out a survey to identify properties which are incorrectly connected. This will be reviewed and Mike will be in discussion with the properties, to find a forward in resolving the matter.

16th July:
Dear Ms Thompson

Thank you for your email which we received on 9 July 2019, regarding reports of sanitary products and other toilet waste at Porthleven Harbour.

Following on from the meeting with Mike Shannon on 4 July 2019, I’m pleased to provide an update for you, ahead of your Town Council meeting.

I can confirm South West Water (SWW) has now identified properties in the area of Salt Cellar Hill who have wrongly connected their foul drainage into the surface water drainage system, which discharges outside of the harbour. I appreciate the importance of getting this resolved and would like to reassure you that SWW is taking this matter very seriously. We will be working with the householders concerned to resolve this as soon as possible, alongside the Environment Agency. Further Close Camera Circuit Television (CCTV) surveying will continue into next week to establish if there are any further misconnections.
Water quality samples taken on 9 July 2019 at the nearest designated bathing water, (Porthleven Sands) indicated that bathing water quality has not been affected.
South West Water’s Love Your Loo campaign, which encourages everyone to only flush the 3Ps – pee, paper and poo – down the loo, also launched in Porthleven in June.

I’m sorry to hear that there was a sewage leak at Methleigh Bottoms, I’m pleased to confirm this section of pipe work was repaired 9 July 2019. There has been, however, a report of a further sewage leak within the grounds of the Builders Merchants premises in Methleigh Bottoms and we are investigating this with the owners.