COASTAL holiday destinations are being hit as raw sewage is pumped into the ocean.

There were sewage discharge alerts at Teignmouth, Dawlish and Holcombe, as well as Exmouth, Sidmouth, Budleigh Salterton and Beer last week, advising beach goers against swimming.

Surfers Against Sewage, a charity that helps to monitor our coastlines and campaign for cleaner oceans, said: ‘Shockingly unsurprising.

‘It’s a horrifying sight on our Safer Seas and Rivers Service app today. What’s happening? A rainy day and sewage spews into our waterways.’

According to Top of the Poops, an organisation monitoring sewage discharges across the UK, the Central Devon constituency was the seventh worst in the country for sewage dumps last year, with more than 4,500 separate dumps, amounting to more than 43,000 hours of sewage pumping.

The Newton Abbot constituency saw more than 2,000 sewage dumps, amounting to 2,900 hours of sewage discharge.

The Environmental Agency gave South West Water its worst environmental rating of just one star, a score shared only with Southern Water.

However, the situation could be much worse. A new analysis of Environmental Agency data shows that some sewage discharge monitors, designed to measure the amount of sewage being pumped into our rivers and seas, are either faulty or not working at all.

According to data from the Environment Agency, 31% of South West Water’s monitors were either not installed or faulty in 2021, the second highest in the country.

Across Devon and Cornwall, one in eight of the monitors installed at designated bathing locations, or where ministers ‘expect a large number of people to bathe’, were either faulty or not installed.

These included three sewage overflow points that discharged at Dawlish Town Beach and one at Teignmouth Beach, one of which was working less than half the time it was meant to.

South West Water blamed these failures on a ‘communications failure’. While the points at Dawlish and Teignmouth have since been fixed, many other repairs remain ongoing.

There were also faulty discharge points up and down the rivers Exe, Teign and Dart, leading to concerns of shellfish contamination in farms at the mouths of the rivers.

Martin Wrigley, Dawlish Town Councillor and Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate, said: ‘It’s an absolute disgrace.

‘We have been championing this for a while down here because we knew that South West Water have been spilling sewage in the area.

‘They are only getting onto the overcapacity and infrastructure issues now, but this was obvious five or ten years ago.

‘They shouldn’t be paying out bonuses and dividends to executives, whilst they’re not investing in the necessary infrastructure.’

Defra said: ‘Water companies’ reliance on overflows is unacceptable. Our regulators have launched the largest criminal and civil investigations into water company sewage discharges ever.’

South West Water responded: ‘We currently have monitors on 80 per cent of our storm overflows and this will be at 100 per cent by the end of this year.

‘Already, 100 per cent of the bathing waters across our region are covered by monitors.

‘These monitors are exposed to the elements and sometimes harsh weather conditions so our teams work around the clock to maintain these and repair any issues as quickly as possible.

‘We continue to invest in our wastewater network to improve monitoring and reduce storm overflows, as part of our largest ever environmental programme in 15 years.’