South West Water fined almost £8m for sewage spills

Judge Matson said she had made clear in that case “incidents of pollution by water companies will not be tolerated and must be taken very seriously by these courts”.

“I have taken into account that these incidents pre-date that sentence and I have also taken into account the changes that South West Water have made since then,” she said.

“Only time will tell if those changes are successful, I certainly hope that will be the case.”

She noted the water company had adopted wording that said “one pollution is too many”.

“It goes without saying that must be the case,” she said.

“However, in this case there were hundreds of incidents of sewage spills on to our beaches and into our waterways and sea and untreated sewage gushed through the harbour wall into the harbour at Polperro on a bank holiday weekend.”

The firm needed to make sure “horrendous, very significant incidents of pollution such as these never happen again”, she added.