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Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

East Devon

Polluted by sewage 2,688 times in 2025 - lasting 13,144 hours - That's 1.52 years!

Monitoring fell below 50% in some locations so could be more

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Totals for East Devon in 2025

29 Sites polluted by South West Water
2,688 sewage dumps
13,144 hours duration
That's 1.52 years. On average 7.4 times a day

How does East Devon compare?

East Devon was the #9 most polluted Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in England & Wales, by duration of sewage overflows, as reported by the water companies

Why the change?

Storm overflows spill when it rains, and 2025 was drier than 2024 - 90% of average annual rainfall against 105%.

So much of any drop is weather, not fixed pipes. The live page shows rainfall and sewage side by side, day by day.

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Pollution Summary 2025

Here are all the reported sewage overflow totals for East Devon in 2025.

How we count, and how accurate it is

A CSO Combined Sewage Overflow - a device that, when operating, pours combined rainwater & sewage into a waterway counts towards East Devon when it sits inside the designated area, or within 200 metres of its boundary. An overflow close to two AONBs is counted in both.

We use data from the water companies, but we are seeing many anomalies that make us believe that location information is quite poor. The situation is likely far worse than reported here.

Other CSO Combined Sewage Overflow - a device that, when operating, pours combined rainwater & sewage into a waterway s just outside the 200 metre boundary are not counted, though they may still affect water quality inside the area.

Company Waterway Site Sewage Dumps Duration (Hours) Reporting %
South West Water Salcombe Regis Stream SALCOMBE REGIS WWTW CSO 235 5,446 100
South West Water Offwell Brook OFFWELL WASTEWATER TREATMENT WORKS 71 1,124 100
South West Water River Axe KILMINGTON WWTW 110 995 99.8
South West Water River Axe COLYTON & COLYFORD WWTW 75 976 100
South West Water Lyme Bay EXMOUTH SEWAGE TREATMENT WORKS 55 788 87.5
South West Water River Otter GITTISHAM PUMPING STATION 67 621 99.5
South West Water River Axe HORSLEARS PUMPING STATION 64 576 100
South West Water River Coly COLYFORD PSCSO/EO 64 557 100
South West Water River Coly BRIDGE HOUSE CSO 63 487 94.7
South West Water Unknown WILMINGTON STW 34 419 100
South West Water River Otter EAST BUDLEIGH PUMPING STATION 80 320 100
South West Water Unknown MUSBURY & WHITFORD STW 1,464 281 100
South West Water Branscombe Stream BRANSCOMBE WWTW 29 138 100
South West Water English Channel LIME KILN TANK CSO 83 113 100
South West Water River Axe AXMOUTH PSCSO/EO 36 105 100
South West Water River Lim MILL LANE CSO 10 36 8.3
South West Water Lyme Bay/Seaton Bay BEER CAR PARK PUMPING STATION 27 34 100
South West Water River Axe CHAPEL STREET CSO 7 28 100
South West Water Lyme Bay And Seaton Bay MEMORIAL GARDENS PS 31 23 100
South West Water River Axe WHITFORD ROAD COMBINED SEWER O/F 5 22 100
South West Water River Otter THE GREEN COMBINED SEWER OVERFLOW 15 13 97.5
South West Water Knowle Stream MARINE PARADE CSO 5 6 100
South West Water River Otter Via Sws MILLMOOR LANE CSO 15 6 100
South West Water River Coly COLYTON CHANTRY CSO 13 6 100
South West Water Knowle Stream THE GREEN TANK CSO 4 4 93
South West Water River Otter GRANARY LANE CSO 7 3 100
South West Water Knowle Stream MEADOW ROAD TANK CSO 6 2 100
South West Water Kersbrook Channel GRANARY LANE (NORTH) CSO 8 1 100
South West Water Back Brook RECREATION GROUND CSO 5 1 100

Data Sources & Accuracy

EDM (Event Duration Monitoring) data and Consented Discharges to Controlled Waters with Conditions from Environment Agency & Data Map Wales, and Scottish Water

Experimental derived data from Thames Water API, Some data may be missing or inaccurate. Live sewage data from Stream Water API

Annual figures up to and including 2025 come from official water company returns. The 2026 figure is our own estimate, derived continuously from the companies' live data feeds.

Uses Environment Agency rainfall data from the real-time data API (Beta) - Rainfall data is delayed by up to two days.

This website is intended to provide an accurate representation of the Environment Agency data. The data is hard to use, and thus some errors may have been made. If you find something that is incorrect, please raise an issue at the GitHub issues page and we'll endeavour to fix it quickly.

This project is not associated, approved or endorsed by any of the companies whose logos you see here.