Southern Water urged to pay for sewage warning signs in Portsmouth

Water companies often release sewage via storm overflows

A council has called on a water company to pay for digital sewage release warning signs in popular bathing areas.

Portsmouth City Council has been lobbying Southern Water to pay for the equipment, which would provide real-time data on stormwater discharges.

But the authority said discussions had made "no progress" and suggested it was unfair for taxpayers to foot the bill.

Southern Water said it "remained open" to the idea of funding the signs and wanted to "explore this further".

The company, which was handed a record £90m fine last year for deliberately dumping vast amounts of sewage into the sea, is responsible for wastewater services in Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Sussex and Kent.

The beach at Hayling Island is among locations that have been affected by Southern Water's stormwater discharges

Plans are being drawn up by the council to start the tendering process for the new signs, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Liberal Democrat council leader Gerald Vernon-Jackson said: "I've asked Southern Water to pay because it's their sewage that's causing the problem.

"They're a company that makes millions of pounds in profit but so far they haven't volunteered to [provide funding] and so the poor taxpayer is having to do it."

The council allocated £35,000 for the equipment in its most recent budget.

A Southern Water spokesperson said: "Providing information about bathing water is something we have been working hard on and we have already improved the value of our Beachbuoy app that provides water users with live water quality monitoring across all of our bathing waters.

"We have also installed two real-time water quality monitoring buoys at two of our bathing water sites, including one near to Hayling Island."