On Friday 29 November, less than a week before the latest Southern Water WRMP Consultation closed, Southern Water experienced two unconnected but near simultaneous major sewer pipe bursts in the Solent Area. What marks both of these incidents as particularly significant is that both sites had been subject to extensive and lengthy repair and refurbishment work by the Company within the last two years.
The immediate aftermath of the Southsea burst was witnessed just after 12:00 noon on Friday 29 November and reported to Portsmouth City Council by a local SPS member, who spoke of paving slaps pushed up by a two foot high geyser of ‘water’ (effluent). Just ten minutes later, the local SPS Council representative driving into the area reported that the Pier Road pumping station was by then at the centre of a 50+ metre diameter lake extending over the ground and the local highway. The incident was then reported to Southern Water’s emergency contact number, but apart from an automated text with a call reference number, no further information has been given.
Given the traffic disruption, the city’s police were quickly on the scene and closed the pavement and the roadway within 30 minutes of the burst occurring. As the images show, emergency work is once again disrupting the local area. The rather terse ‘dog exercise area’ signage, attributed to a Portsmouth City Council author, displays the level of frustration felt by local residents. Southern Water is remaining tight-lipped about this new burst but the disruption caused by the previous incident on the same site remains fresh in residents’ memory.
After many months of closure during 2022 and 2023, Pembroke Road, a major through route between Southsea and Old Portsmouth, is once again closed to traffic for the works and for use as a parking lot for the road tankers needed to transfer the effluent off Portsea Island to Budds Farm and/or Peel Common waste water treatment works. The QR code on the Southern Water notice takes the reader to the usual less-than-helpful announcement.
The second burst on the same day occurred near Appley Road in Ryde and has been widely reported in the Island’s local press, with the IoW County Press noting that “only as recently as April 2022, Southern Water had repaired a collapsed, outdated 1980s sewer pipe in Appley and replaced it with ‘future proof’ new pipework.”
Southern Water’s decaying sewer network ‘minefield‘
The underground sewer networks beneath Portsea Island, Ryde and no doubt other towns and cities across the Solent area, all now appear to be in a state of advanced decay. Residents and businesses around Portsmouth and the surrounding area will not have forgotten the repeated, unscheduled repair activity needed on the A2030 Eastern Road following similar main sewer bursts over the last couple of years. As one of just three critical routes into and out from the City of Portsmouth, each incident has been accompanied by widespread traffic chaos on the surrounding highway and motorway roads.
There is no incentive for Southern Water to do anything other than ‘fix on fail’
Southern Water are not allowed to make a profit on routine or emergency maintenance activity and do not prioritise preventative maintenance as, without profit, investors have little interest in such activity. This is nevertheless absolutely essential work to keep communities working.
That’s not all, Southern Water currently lose around 100 million litres of water from the supply network every day to leaks, that’s 19% of the water they treat. The Company’s slow programme for improvements shows that even by 2050 they will still be losing about 10% of all the water they treat, and that’s including the “new water” manufactured at huge cost from their planned new effluent recycling schemes.
It is highly significant that both of these main sewer bursts are disrupting the supply of effluent to the Havant and Sandown waste water treatment plants at which Southern Water now proposes to recycle sewage effluent into drinking water to protect the Solent area’s future drinking water supply.
Click this link to read the separate article on Southern Water’s revised draft Water Resources Management Plan.
Solent Protection Society 