SOUTHERN WATER has sparked fury with “absolutely disgusting” plans to dump sewage into a major Isle of Wight tourist hotspot, which is home to rare seagrass habitats and seahorses.

The utility firm announced it will add a 22-metre extension to an old sewage pipe to release untreated waste into shallow lagoon waters at Silver Sands Beach on Bembridge Point during heavy rainfall several times a year. 

Located near Bembridge Harbour on the island’s east coast, the area is regularly visited by holidaymakers and water users and is home to an array of habitats and species, including rare offshore seagrass meadows, seahorses, Mediterranean gulls and herrings.

Local residents and campaigners have hit out over the plan’s potential harm to marine ecosystems, the negative impact on local tourist businesses, and public health risks from diseases such as E.coli and enterococci.

Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) chief executive Giles Bristow said: “People are rightly furious. 

“Southern Water wants communities to accept more sewage pollution on their beaches while its CEO Lawrence Gosden took home £1.4 million last year — double his previous pay packet.”

Mr Bristow added that SAS has issued 2,444 sewage alerts across Southern Water bathing sites so far this year, including 45 at Bembridge, which amounts to almost one every three days.

“This is a broken system that continues to reward pollution instead of fixing it,” he said.

Gary Carter, national officer at GMB, which represents water industry workers, said: “This is yet another example of how private water has utterly failed the British public. 

“Obscene wealth extracted by fat cats while customers are fleeced and our precious waterways are fouled.

“The UK water industry is the clearest ever example of a sector that should never have fallen into private hands and it must be returned to the public as soon as possible.”

We Own It director Cat Hobbs told the Morning Star: “This is absolutely disgusting. How dare Southern Water put nature, tourism and local residents at risk of raw sewage? How dare the regulators approve it?

“And crucially, how dare this government continue with the failed experiment of privatisation that means this kind of disgraceful decision gets made?

“The government has plenty of reasons to take Southern Water into special administration and permanent public ownership. They must step in and stop this destruction.”

She pointed out 62 per cent of Southern Water is owned by the “vampire kangaroo” Australia-based firm Macquarie “that drove Thames Water into deep debt while extracting huge profits.

“This is the only kind of behaviour we can expect under a privatised system,” Ms Hobbs said.

“We need public ownership now to start putting communities and nature ahead of profit.”

Southern Water claims the project is merely restoring an old pipe and is required to prevent the flooding of local homes during extreme weather.

But locals accused it of failing to properly engage the community on the project or consult them on other options to mitigate the flood risk, such as investing in nature-based solutions, permanent holding tanks or improvements to local infrastructure.

David Hunt, a Bembridge resident, said: “The water companies are supposed to be improving their record on sewage discharges, but this illustrates that it is only getting worse.”

Another local, Andrew Holman, called it “inconceivable” that Southern Water will allow sewage to flow straight on to “one of the finest holiday beaches on the Isle of Wight.”

“Offshore are rare seagrass meadows that play such an important part in our ecology,” he added. “Yet they are now going to be further endangered by this crazy proposal.”

Resident Lindsey Newberry said the extension would “reduce public confidence in using this beach and could have a significant impact on local businesses who rely on tourism.”

Hundreds travel to the beach each summer for the annual “Fort Walk,” where they wade three miles through low tide waters to round the 19th century landmark St Helen’s Fort.

Southern Water insisted alternatives such as storm storage tanks or nature-based solutions were not considered suitable in isolation, with the former filling too rapidly during heavy rain.

It also said that longer-term investigations into reducing the flow of surface water into the network are planned, but these do not remove the immediate need to restore the sewage outflow pipe to an operational condition.

A company spokesperson said that its monitoring and operational data suggest there should be “no noticeable effect on the local environment.”

The Marine Management Organisation, which is responsible for planning decisions in seas around England and Wales, said it “carefully considered the impacts to the environment” before approving the pipe’s construction.

The Environment Agency (EA), which is responsible for permitting discharges from sewage pipelines, gave no planning objection to the pipe, nor did the Isle of Wight Council.