WaterFit - protecting rivers and seas together
WaterFit is the next stage in our environment strategy, accelerating and expanding plans to protect and enhance the South West’s water for future generations.
Our WaterFit programme reflects our commitment to reduce our impact on the environment and ensure we are enhancing the South West’s water quality. We’ve listened to our customers, and we know that you want more information about what’s happening and when. We are committed to providing greater transparency on our network and its performance, as well as how we will improve it, now and in the future. Find out more below
We know that we need to and can go further, faster.
We want the South West to be the destination for water quality.
WaterFit outlines how we will play our part, working with partners, customers, visitors and local communities to protect and enhance the South West’s water for future generations.
There’s no doubt that improving river and sea quality has taken centre stage, as water-based recreation, such as wild-swimming and paddle boarding have become more popular, and the pandemic has strengthened the bond we all want to have with green and blue spaces, now and for generations to come.
Home to 860 miles of coastline and nearly four in every ten coastal bathing waters, we value and prioritise the water environment. We have worked tirelessly across the region to improve the bathing waters around the coastline, which now for the first time has achieved 100% water quality standards, with 99% achieving Good / Excellent.
Over 10 million visitors come to the South West every year, in addition to the 2.3m people that live in the region. We want the South West to be the destination for water quality.
WaterFit outlines how we will play our part, working with partners, customers, visitors and local communities to protect and enhance the South West’s water for future generations.
WaterFit will enable to us to deliver a step change in both river and coastal water quality:
- It will enable us to expand our 100% excellent bathing water quality standards all year round, allowing everyone to enjoy our 860 miles of coastline.
- We’ll also reduce our impact on river water quality by one third by 2025, reducing spills from storm overflows to an average of 20 per year per overflow, increasing capacity in our infrastructure to the equivalent of 20 Olympic swimming pools.
- We’ll target delivering zero serious pollutions by 2025, with year-on-year reductions in all pollutions.
We’re making great progress to date. In 2022, we delivered:
- c.30% reduction in releases from storm overflows – from 39 to 28.
- c.30% reduction in wastewater pollution incidents, including 75% reduction in serious pollutions – from 8 to 2.
- 100% bathing water quality achieved for the second consecutive year.
WaterFit will only work if we all play our part. We also need your feedback on our plans, about what we prioritise, and what we do first in each community, ensuring all areas in our region benefit. Our WaterShare+ customer panel is open to the public and if you are interested in attending to provide challenge and feedback on our work you can find out more here.
Click here to find out more about WaterFit.
WaterFit Live
Visiting the beach today?
We know everyone across the South West is passionate about our beaches. We want everyone to feel confident in bathing water quality and we are proud that all of our bathing waters met water quality standards for 2 years in a row, with 99% of them rated as ‘Good’ or ‘Excellent’ in 2022.
However, we know there is more we need to do to reduce the impact of our sewerage network on the environment. That’s why we are working hard to reduce the use of storm overflows, through our £330m investment programme WaterFit. And also why we have launched WaterFit Live ahead of this year’s bathing season to tell you more about when storm overflows may temporarily affect beaches across our region.
WaterFit live, our interactive map, is the next step on our journey to demonstrating transparency and providing easily accessible information to a wider audience. We will build and develop on this map, getting feedback and input from customers and communities to ensure we are responding to the information you want to see. We already know we want to provide near-real-time information on individual storm overflows and are working hard to provide this information in the coming months.
We’re keen to provide updates on how we are progressing with WaterFit and will provide updates on the work as it is delivered. We are investing in more than half of the beaches which have storm overflows by 2025, with work underway to separate surface water drainage from our sewer network, to build storm tanks to hold more water at sewage works, and to improve treatment works.
Click here to find out more about WaterFit Live.