Southern Water bosses grilled on pollution in Chichester Harbour and wastewater capacity

And they were warned there would be ‘difficult choices’ ahead with organisations such as the council, Southern Water, Natural England and the Environment Agency needing to work together to find solutions that protected the environment but also allowed for growth.

For years, residents have been furious about the amount of sewage being released into the harbour – a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Site of Special Scientific Interest.

And there have been horrific reports of issues such as sewage overflowing into streets and children in West Wittering having to ‘wade through sewage’ on their way to school as the wastewater system struggles to cope with ever-increasing housing numbers.

So, at a CDC overview and scrutiny committee meeting on Tuesday (January 17), representatives from all three organisations answered questions from councillors and the public.

The committee plans to send a letter to Ofwat laying out the concerns raised during the meeting – and there certainly were plenty of those.

Leif Searle, a student at Bishop Luffa School, asked what was described as the ‘million dollar question’ – namely, when will there be a significant reduction in the amount of sewage discharged into Chichester Harbour.

And resident Bruce Garrett called on Southern Water to ‘act responsibly’ and tell developers that the sewerage network could not deal with any more housing effluent.

He added that a moratorium on planning decisions was essential.

But Toby Willison, Southern Water’s director of environment & public affairs, explained that things weren’t that easy.

He told the meeting that, as things stood, the company was not allowed to tell developers that they could not connect new homes to the sewerage system.

But he added that Defra – the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs – hoped to see some changes by 2024, which would allow some connections to be refused, though not all.

As for the discharge of sewage into the harbour, Dr Willison said a programme to reduce the amount of releases from Combined Sewage Overflows (CSOs) would take place between 2025 and 2030, though it was hoped that some of the work could be carried out earlier.

CSOs were developed as overflow valves to reduce the risk of sewage backing up during heavy rainfall.

Without them, sewage could back up, leaking through sinks and toilets and into people’s homes.

Dr Willison added: “We’ve seen a significant reduction from last year in terms of the average number of spills per CSO.

“It’s probably weather-driven rather than anything we’ve specifically done.

“But there are things we will be doing over the next couple of years that will begin to bring the number down.”

Dr Willison told the meeting that, when the water industry was privatised in 1989, 70 per cent of waste was untreated. Now the figure is only five per cent.

He added: “I’m not for a minute playing down how significant CSO spilling is – because it is hugely significant.

“We care about it every bit as much as our customers do – but the change from where we were 30 years ago to where we are now is really very significant.”

Nick Mills, head of Southern Water’s Storm Overflow Task Force, said the company was talking to both Ofwat and the Environment Agency about what its Water Industry National Environment Programme would look like.

The programme represents a set of actions all water (sewerage) companies need to complete in order to help meet their environmental obligations.

Dr Mills said storm overflows would represent a large part of the work.

He advised that the total investment needed to meet the requirements of the Environment Act was going to be ‘north of £2bn’.

While he said much of the work would be carried out ‘as soon as possible’, he hoped some would be done within the next two years.

More information about the whens and wheres of the work should be shared in the spring.

The use of tankers to transfer sewage was also raised, with Chris Page (Ind, North Mundham & Tangmere) calling them ‘a measure of the shortfall of the capacity being provided’.

Tracie Bangert (Lib Dem, Southbourne) reported that sewage, including lavatory paper, had been releasing into the Ham Brook since November last year.

Quoting figures from the BeachBuoy recording app, she said that from January 2021-October 2022, there had been 217.24 hours of release, while the figures from November 2022 to now had been 452.63 hours.

Dr Mills stressed the need for people to report problems.

Mr Page was less than impressed with the ‘report it’ line, saying ‘nothing ever gets done’.

Dr Willison said: “There is not a silver bullet that any one of us can deploy that will suddenly solve the situation for us – we’ve got to be working together to seek the solutions that provide us with the best outcomes and the best value for money.”

He added: “There’s a fierce truth that we collectively need to acknowledge.

“In places like Chichester, the environmental regulators are telling us that we have particularly sensitive habitats that are being impacted by our collective activities, whether those are agriculture, whether they’re development, whether it’s from the waste material that we process.

“The combination of a changing climate and pressure to increase housing is not helping the situation.

“We have to be working absolutely in lockstep to find the solutions that enable appropriate growth to happen, that protect those really important environments but also ensure that we’re resilient to a changing climate in the future.”