Nearly 2 months of sewage discharges into River Lim in 2023

Latest data out from the Environment Agency on permitted sewage overflows in 2023 showed that untreated sewage spilled into the River Lim, in Lyme Regis, for 1300 hours (equivalent in time to almost two months).

The discharge point to the west of the Cobb – which is an indicator for the water quality on the Sandy Beach, the designated bathing beach - spilled for 30 recorded hours in 2023, compared with 8 in 2022.

Overall this shows little change from the 2022 data which – after revision – showed 1200 hours of discharges into the Lim.

“Things aren’t improving – indeed in the case of the Cobb outlet they’ve got considerably worse”, said Vicki Elcoate of the River Lim Action group. “It’s also concerning that there are anomalies in the data which need explanation. While the discharges from the Sewage Treatment Works have decreased significantly, which is welcome, there have been huge increases at Mill Lane and Horn Bridge”.

Originally South West Water and the Environment Agency published much higher figures for 2022 which the River Lim Action group questioned. These were then reviewed and revised down. Questions from the group about the evidence base for the revised figures were not answered satisfactorily, making the data hard to compare.

“The whole picture has got worse since 2020 when we had 376 hours of overflows”, said Vicki Elcoate, “But it’s hard to know what data to trust as they raise so many questions and last year proved to be incorrect”.

Notes to editors

Source of data published March 27th 2024: https://environment.data.gov.uk/dataset/21e15f12-0df8-4bfc-b763-45226c16a8ac