SAS demo South West Water – Chief Exec stays away

South West Water Chief Executive Bob Baty, failed to come out and meet protestors
from Surfers Against Sewage when the pressure group demo’d the company at their
headquarters on Friday morning.

The surfers had invited Mr Baty to come and put his head in the stocks as ‘punishment’
for the companies repeated environmental offences. The surfers were further
fuelled by recent pollution incidents at a number of the regions beaches.

The demo went ahead with SAS putting their own Bob Baty look-alike in the stocks
and pelting him with water filled condoms and spray from water pistols. A letter
detailing the surfers complaints and concerns was delivered to a SWW spokesperson
for Bob Baty’s attention.

SAS, Richard Hardy: "There has been a series of pollution incidents at
the regions beaches this summer involving South West Water. There’s absolutely
no excuse for this poor performance. We expect sewage treatment works to operate
correctly and for beaches to be sewage free – at the moment SWW are failing
to deliver. We will continue to push this issue with the company until we reach
a satisfactory conclusion!"

Beaches that have been blighted by sewage pollution over the past few months
have included Gwithian, Teignmouth, Dawlish and St Agnes. It would appear that
certain sewage treatment works are unable to cope with the loads placed on them.
This could be due to substandard equipment being used or to a growth in population
that hasn’t been accounted for in the companies forward planning – either way
the situation is unsatisfactory.

"We pay our water bills on the understanding that the company will treat
our sewage and supply us with clean water. Our water bills are the highest in
the country, we don’t want second- rate solutions, we want the best and we expect
South West Water to deliver the best".

SAS plan to meet with South West Water in October.