Portsmouth Council leader's idea for Southern Water buy-out

A council leader has suggested local authorities buy Southern Water to stop it dumping raw sewage into the sea.

Leader of Portsmouth City Council, Gerald Vernon-Jackson says he has "no confidence" in the firm improving.

"We cannot trust Southern Water," he said at a full council meeting. "We cannot trust the government. We have to make sure we sort this ourselves."

It comes after filtered sewage poured out of a pipe into Langstone Harbour for 49 hours in October.

In July the water firm was hit with a £90m fine for deliberately dumping billions of litres of raw sewage into the sea.

The sewage was discharged into Langstone Harbour from this treatment plant run by Southern Water

The city council unanimously passed a motion calling on Southern Water to completely stop discharges at Langstone Harbour more than two years ago.

Speaking at Tuesday's meeting, where the council agreed a renewed motion making the same demand, Mr Vernon-Jackson said: "I'm really disappointed to have to say I have no confidence that they're going to get any better.

"We have to see if we can take things into our own hands."

The Lib Dem leader added he was willing to write to other council leaders across the region "to see if we can buy [it] out", reported the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Chris Pearsal captured the pipe pumping filtered sewage into Langstone Harbour in October using a drone

Liberal Democrat councillor Lee Hunt said action had to be taken and that the issue "cannot be put off into the future".

Conservative councillor Scott Payter-Harris said the suggestion was "quite silly" and showed "how far away" Cllr Vernon-Jackson was from the financial realities of such a move.

"To transform the sewage system in this country is between £150bn and £650bn," he said.

Councillor Keith Mans, leader of Hampshire County Council, said: "The pollution incidents and issues relating to Southern Water operations in the area are both disappointing and concerning.

"We firmly believe that the company should act quickly to put measures in place to prevent re-occurrences, and we would agree with the need for effective oversight and monitoring by the Environment Agency."

Water companies are allowed to release sewage after certain weather events, such as prolonged periods of heavy rain. Southern Water says it is working to cut storm overflows by 80% by 2030.