The owner of Exmouth Watersports company has written to South West Water claiming that sewage pollution in the sea is damaging his business.

Stephen Rollason Managing Director of Red Rock Leisure Ltd, which owns PrattsHayes campsite and Exmouth Water sports has written the letter to South West Water in reference to the sewage spills into the estuary, river and seas over the past year. 

Stephen said in the letter: "We work hard to encourage in the region of 20 thousands visitors to our campsite, wedding venue and watersports/activity centre. To then have received so much bad feed back and complaints due to the closure of bathing and watersports is surely unacceptable. There is also an obvious financial loss as we have to refund customers who cannot go out out on the water and the loss we have suffered from guests no longer wishing to return to East Devon.

"In our times when the environment is such and issue, should we not be leading the way and showing care to our environment and protect our resources for the future generations? As a company we have planted thousands of trees and support green levies. We teach our customers about sustainability and about protecting nature.

"We pay out extra for green energy and environmentally green waste collections. And we are in the process of possible large scale solar system, we are trying to do our bit for the environment."

In response, a South West Water spokesman told the Journal: “We want everyone to feel confident about water quality across our region and proud of the performance of their water company.

"We continue to reduce our use of storm overflows but we know there is more to do. We are investing in several schemes in Exmouth to prevent surface water entering the sewer network and to reduce spills.

"All overflows in Exmouth are currently included in plans to be improved by the end of 2030."

They concluded: "We have a plan, it is working and we won’t stop until everyone can feel proud about the performance of their water company in the South West.”