Westward Ho! - The West Devon Free Press

March Sewage Pollution in South West England

Post author:Jim Hunt
Post published:29 February 2024
Post category:Water Quality
Post comments:0 Comments

It’s the day after February 28th, and the previous month’s sewage pollution article is overflowing with almost continuous news of combined sewer overflow activations around the coast of Devon and Cornwall. I’ve taken the liberty of starting this article a day early, hoping rather than expecting that March will be a bit quieter.

After yet more rain overnight, here is this morning’s Surfers Against Sewage map of pollution around our coasts:

Starting with the local surfing beaches, sewage pollution has been occurring this morning at Widemouth Bay:

and the adjacent Trevone and Harlyn Bays, amongst numerous other places across Cornwall:

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February Sewage Pollution in South West England

Post author:Jim Hunt
Post published:6 February 2024
Post category:Water Quality
Post comments:0 Comments

At least we've endured no named storms for a few days! However, this evening we have experienced a band of rain crossing the West Country: Needless to say when I…

Sewage Pollution Following Storm Isha

Post author:Jim Hunt
Post published:21 January 2024
Post category:Water Quality
Post comments:0 Comments

I posed a (rather rhetorical) question to our regular reader(s) on XTwitter yesterday, and the answer arrived in next to no time: https://twitter.com/west_devon_info/status/1748853663987028292 This evening Storm Isha is unleashing her…

Christmas is Coming, and so is Sewage Pollution

Post author:Jim Hunt
Post published:19 December 2023
Post category:Water Quality
Post comments:4 Comments

Following the severe storms last weekend a smaller storm is crossing the West Country this morning. Here's the Met Office forecast for today's accumulated rainfall by midday: That shows around…

An Electrified Trip to Bideford

Post author:Jim Hunt
Post published:7 August 2023
Post category:News
Post comments:0 Comments

We’d never been to Westward Ho! before. Or Bideford for that matter! Hence we decided to combine business with pleasure and visit them both this afternoon.

Our conveyance for the day was Lisa, our trusty Nissan LEAF electric vehicle. She planned on taking the shortest route to Bideford, but that road was “closed”. Hence we were all forced to take a detour in the direction of Holsworthy. Lisa’s first stop was in the Torridge Council car park. Two non electric council vans were visible, but no electric vehicle charging stations were to be seen. For use by either council or visitor EVs:

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Summer’s in the air, and sewage is in the sea

Post author:Jim Hunt
Post published:27 July 2023
Post category:Water Quality
Post comments:1 Comment

School summer holidays are starting. I don’t know if there is a causal relationship, but it probably won’t come as a huge surprise to many residents of West Devon that the UK Met Office’s rainfall map of the area looked like this yesterday afternoon:

As luck would have it, I had just set up our shiny new Twitter account so that I could report to the rest of the planet on yesterday’s exciting news from Halwill Junction football pitch.

Twitter insisted that I “follow” several other accounts, and of course South West Water was top of my list! Whereupon Elon Musk‘s latest (single) X algorithm suddenly revealed this to me:

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