South West Water has significantly reduced its use of storm overflows in Princetown.

The water company has upgraded the village’s wastewater treatment works by improving the site’s pumps and treatment process – doubling the amount of wastewater it can handle. The improvements have reduced storm overflows spills in Princetown by more than half.

Princetown is 1,400 feet above sea level and as a result it gets twice as much rain as nearby Plymouth. This makes it more susceptible to groundwater entering the local sewers, placing added strain on the wastewater network and increasing the number of spills.

To tackle this, South West Water has carried out work using CCTV cameras to identify where this groundwater was getting into the system. Its teams then carried out a series of improvements, which involved relining 600 metres of sewer and sealing 16 manholes to keep groundwater out.

Jess Cox, South West Water’s Area Operations Manager, said: “As someone who lives locally to Princetown and oversees the area’s wastewater network, I’m proud of the work we’ve done here. It’s already made a big difference but we know there is more to do.

“We continue to work every day – me and hundreds of colleagues – on further improvements across our communities in order to protect the environment and reduce our use of storm overflows.”

Whilst the work has had a real impact on storm overflow use in the area, South West Water is investigating other ways to continue reducing spills in Princetown as it looks to become the first water company to meet the government’s target of achieving less than 10 spills per overflow per year – a decade ahead of target.