Surfers Against Sewage have been left fuming this morning as sewage and sanitary waste has spilled out of manholes covers on Quay Road, St Agnes and ended up in the water at Trevaunance Cove.

Despite posing a real threat to the health of water users, there has been no warning notice issued to inform the public of the potential threat to their health as a result of coming into contact with raw sewage mixed with rainwater.

Surfers Against Sewage were on hand this morning to see the full extent of the problem, which is ongoing and continues to spill into the road and then down into the Cove. Although South West Water officials were on site they failed to give any satisfactory answers concerning a possible problem with the treatment works.

SAS have already highlighted the problems this week at Trevaunance Cove concerning recent reports of poor water quality, especially during periods of heavy rainfall. The surfers were also disappointed to see that the beach has only met basic EU water quality legislation this year when the UK's bathing water results were published at the beginning of the week. Last year the beach met the higher EU standard and having a state of the art sewage treatment works leads one to expect the beach to consistently meet and exceed these standards.

What makes this all the worse is that nobody seems to want to be accountable for notifying bathers and water users when a sewage problem occurs. No public notices have been issued this morning notifying people of the problem. We need a clear statement from the Environment Agency and the local authority as to why no notices have been put up.

Richard Hardy, from Surfers Against Sewage says: "We are also calling for an urgent statement from South West Water about why the beach water results have got worse this bathing season and why a situation like today seems to be happening more regularly now we are entering the winter. There was a clear public health hazard this morning and the water company will need to be held accountable - we expect a full and urgent statement from them today"

For further information please contact Richard or Vicky at SAS on Tel: 01872 553001 or Mobile 07817 401480

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