Work to protect the water quality in the Wotton Brook and Exe Estuary is continuing – with the invaluable support of our Water Guardians and various partner organisations. An important development is South West Water’s planned £2.2 million project in Lympstone to reduce combined sewer overflows (CSOs) into the Estuary (due to start in April 2025 and complete in 2027).
Representatives of the Lympstone Water Quality Group, Lympstone Flood Resilience Group, and Wild About Lympstone had an initial meeting with seven representatives of SWW at the end of 2024. Under government guidelines, water companies should take a collaborative, catchment-based approach, and use nature-based solutions wherever possible. Our aim is to work with SWW to ensure that this happens in practice; spills to the Estuary are minimised, and there is no negative impact on water quality or flood risk in the Wotton Brook. A meeting with the newly appointed Project Manager, and other representatives of SWW, is due to be held in March.
We’ve already met with SWW’s local operational team to better understand the sewage system, the causes of spills, and the monitoring and maintenance programmes, and we’re waiting for more information on two other projects in the Exe Estuary – including a shellfish water investigation involving quarterly spot sampling at sites around the estuary (started early 2024) and a bathing waters investigation involving daily sampling at Lympstone harbour (started August 2024).
We’ve also been busy on an array of other things. For example, we’ve been talking with several landowners about opportunities for nature-based solutions, i.e., using natural processes like wetlands which bring multiple benefits to water quality, biodiversity, and flood risk. Our relationship with the Woodland Trust is growing from strength to strength, and a range of further opportunities are being explored at Yonder Oak. On development and planning issues, we’ve continued to review and comment on planning applications that could cause water pollution, e.g., large scale residential developments; and we are planning to submit further comments on the East Devon Local Plan (as part of the Regulation 19 consultation).
More news next month, and we’re planning to report our overall findings and progress at the 17 May community event being coordinated by Wild About Lympstone.
Lympstone Water Quality Group
