Cornwall: A vote of no confidence in South West Water
cornwall council have lost confidence in south west water
Today Cornwall Council ‘almost unanimously’ passed a motion - it was a vote of no confidence in South West Water (SWW) as the operator of water and wastewater services for the county of Cornwall. Following years of broken promises, increasing sewage pollution, failing infrastructure, and the financial gain of shareholders and executive staff despite being four billion pound in debt, Cornwall has had enough. The motion was prompted after over 60 parish councils voted no confidence in SWW due to the successful grassroots campaign by Dowr Glan. You can watch the debate and the passionate contributions from Cornwall’s Councillors by skipping the video to agenda item 11b.
When introducing the motion, the Council highlighted the valued contributions of local workers and frontline staff employed by SWW, and that the motion is not a criticism of their commitment and dedication to their communities. We fully support this sentiment and are deeply disappointed in the position local resident SWW employees have been put in by their employer; they are in an impossible situation with little support, as will be the case for many SWW employees on the frontlines in mainland Cornwall.
should the council of the isles of scilly follow suit?
We have added ‘Template 8’ to our toolkit, which is an email to the Councillors of the Isles of Scilly. You can download and send it as a PDF or e-mail it now — all you’ll need to do is add your name and hit send. The letter requests that Councillors align with their mainland peers and motion a vote of no confidence in SWW as the water and wastewater operator for the Isles of Scilly, and gives a justification of why they should. The Council of the Isles of Scilly will not automatically be included in Cornwall Council’s motion because we’re a Unitary Authority, which is why water legislation did not apply to the islands until 2020. If the community wishes for the Council of the Isles of Scilly to mirror the sentiments and actions of Cornwall Council, a separate motion will need to be passed here.
Since the publication of our website, the launch of our petition, SWW’s and the Environment Agency’s announcement and our response, there have been further updates to SWW’s wastewater project page. Additional information has been added, and as the page is regularly adapted, the version published on 21st July 2026 can be accessed via this static PDF. The additions do not adequately explain why the organisation proposed an unlawful wastewater treatment solution for St Mary’s despite earlier commitments within their own publications to deliver secondary sewage treatment for St Mary’s at minimum. They do not explain why, in six years, SWW has not already completed the necessary technical assessments required to propose the only lawful sewage solution for St Mary’s, which is secondary sewage treatment as the minimum standard. It does confirm that SWW has worked very closely with regulatory bodies like the EA since the start of, and prior to their operation on the islands as explored in our last update. We continue to be grateful for the re-commitment to delivering secondary treatment for St Mary’s, but we await the full proposal and evidence of environmental impact.
our next update
Environment Action Scilly have been researching suitable sewage treatment technology that would prevent the need to ship large amounts of sewage sludge to the mainland, substantially reduce the risk of harm to the environment, improve public health risk from poor water quality, and would prevent nuisance odours from the processing of sewage sludge. We have received advice on possible solutions and case studies of good practice in both similar and much larger population equivalents in the UK and Ireland. We will provide a further update on this in due course.
