Although the recent report in the South Hams Gazette omits to say when, according to a council spokesperson sewage spilled out of manhole covers in Kingsbridge, adding ‘it was all due to one offending item used by households- wet wipes.’

However although wet wipes can certainly be a contributory factor, they are certainly not the only cause.

To quote South West Water’s Complaints Customer Manager: ‘In very wet weather it is very difficult to keep the network empty, especially now we are seeing heavier prolonged downpours and added urban sprawl.’

In other words the problem has as much to do with climate change and such recent housing developments as Applegate Park, one of the contributors to the ‘added urban sprawl’, as wet wipes. And South West Water accept their existing infrastructure cannot cope.

As a result, in the six weeks between 28 October and 10 December, Kingsbridge town centre was flooded by various combinations of foul sewage, tidal waters and fluvial and urban drainage on no fewer than six separate occasions.

And following a further flood in the early hours of New Years Eve the management of the King of Prussia pub posted on Facebook: ‘We cannot go on running a business where every time it rains we get flooded even when it is low tide!’ It is, as they said, ‘totally unacceptable.’

Unfortunately floods in Kingsbridge are far from a new problem. Back in November 2022 Devon County Council, as the Lead Local Flood Authority under Section 19 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, published a Flood Investigation Report into a flood event that had occurred in the town on the Platinum Jubilee weekend in June, earlier that year.

According to the Report, ‘the intensity of the rainfall exceeded the capacity and ability to enter the drainage system causing it to be overwhelmed and flooding to occur… Representatives from the Town Council have suggested that residential development sites could have contributed to the flooding… The ongoing Kingsbridge Integrated Urban Drainage Model (IUDM) and Flood Analysis report by Pell Frischmann shows that the primary flood risk on Church Street is fluvial and exacerbated by surface water when the watercourse cannot accept additional flows… the IUDM report has confirmed that there is fluvial flood risk as well as surface water flood risk from the combined system.’

Regrettably that risk is not going to go away. Combined sewage systems, where domestic excrement and rainwater from our roofs and roads share the same pipe, are designed to overflow every time there’s a heavy storm and those pipes are filled to bursting point.

And every time a new road or housing estate is added to the existing system the problem is exacerbated. Nor is resolving it going to be easy, or even possible. The obvious solution, at least to ensure raw sewage doesn’t litter the streets, would be for sewage and rainwater to be carried in separate pipes, ideally with sufficient capacity to cope. But that would require digging up every road in every town and laying new pipes to every home. The cost would be astronomic. So it simply won’t happen.

Nor will any government require developers, as a condition of obtaining planning consent, to lay separate pipelines from the houses they build to the nearest sewage treatment works. Once more the cost would be prohibitive. And it would only go part of the way to solving the problem. But it would at least be possible to insist that only the sewage from those developments can enter the existing system. Any rainwater and run-off from roads would have to be dealt with sustainably on site.

There is no question that allowing sewage to float in the streets and find its way in to people’s homes and businesses is an unacceptable public health hazard. On December 10 the area outside the Hermitage was peppered with human faeces. Similarly the day before the combined sewer was seen discharging from manholes in Bridge Street, while foul water was also seen discharging from a combined sewer at the Quay Car Park close to the Quay Court Care Home. And these are not the only recent instances.

Of course, banning the sale of wet wipes would certainly help. But the council spokesperson who was quoted was wrong to suggest ‘that the town’s combined system of drains and sewers would be able to cope were it not for these items.’ That fact has already been established.

Effective solutions need to be found. Yet according to South West Water’s Complaints Customer Manager, the preferred option originally proposed in the Kingsbridge IUDM and Flood Analysis report ‘was too far out of budget and insufficient Government funding would be available to undertake this robust collaborative scheme to further protect the town from the combination of sewer, fluvial and tidal flooding.

‘This leaves South West Water with having to promote a standalone scheme to reduce the risks of sewer flooding in the lower part of the town,’ he explained, adding. ‘This is likely to involve additional pumping storm overflow discharges during periods of high tides and/or high levels into the watercourse or estuary.’

Consequently the only affordable solution South West Water seems prepared to offer in an attempt to reduce polluting the streets of Kingsbridge is to transform the Kingsbridge and Salcombe Estuary in to an open sewer!

It is time that those responsible for this scandal were held accountable.

Included amongst their number could be the successive governments who have demanded the construction of ever more housing without also requiring the necessary infrastructure to be put in place, water companies who have prioritised shareholder returns over community needs, planners who have failed to check the details and properly examine the cumulative impact of the developments they approve, and our elected representatives who have failed to stand up to prevent such failings occurring.

It is entirely wrong that the only option apparently on offer to Kingsbridge residents is to either go on finding raw sewage floating in the streets, with homes and businesses continuing to be flooded, or else alternatively agree to allowing South West Water noticeably adding to the volume of sewage that is already being dumped in to the Estuary.

Needless to say, neither option is an acceptable solution.