Planning comment by The National Poo Museum

Background

The National Poo Museum exists to highlight interesting and important issues connected with poo. We have worked with Southern Water for several years to help share messages about what is and isn’t ok for people to put into the public foul sewer system and we have devoted a section of our exhibition to this.

In early 2025 Southern Water invited The National Poo Museum to take part in their public consultation about the wastewater recycling scheme proposed for the Isle of Wight. Our engagement in that process led us to have concerns about the safety and the legal context of the scheme and we outline these below. We will be happy to share the documents and other sources of information we refer to.

In short, though the concerns we raise are not typical planning considerations, we believe that the wastewater recycling application 25/01619/FUL

• incorporates elements that are illegal and risk significant harm to public health and the environment.

• would put the Isle of Wight Council at risk of litigation in future.

• relies on a public consultation that did not meet the legal requirements for public consultations defined by the Gunning Principles.

For these reasons we oppose the application as it currently stands.

Regulatory Context

Southern Water’s website states that ‘Under section 118 of the Water Industry Act 1991, it's an offence to discharge trade effluent without consent and doing so may lead to prosecution.’ Southern Water https://www.southernwater.co.uk/commercial/trade-effluent-businesses/trade-effluent-consent/.

This regulation was put in place to protect public health, the environment and the sewerage system from harmful industrial waste. It enables water companies to effectively manage effluent, preventing blockages, pollution and toxic inhibition of treatment processes. It is particularly important for the maintenance and protection of reverse osmosis systems.

Southern Water clarifies on its website that trade effluent is “any liquid waste […] produced wholly or partly from trade or industrial activities on trade premises” and uses chemical manufacturing, car washes and laundries as examples of businesses which normally require a trade effluent permit.

The National Poo Museum obtained a list of all current Trade Effluent Permits for the Isle of Wight and is very concerned that there are only 52 for all of the Island’s industries and businesses. These permits are held by just 15 companies, including the Isle of Wight Council.

In 2024 there were 6739 businesses registered on the Isle of Wight. https://www.countypress.co.uk/news/24929603.isle-wight-sees-record-number-businesses-2024/

Many of these businesses don’t need a trade effluent permit because they don’t produce trade effluent, but we believe it isn’t plausible that only 15 out of nearly 7000 businesses do. There are major industries on the Isle of Wight in aerospace, wind turbine manufacture, marine construction, composites, market gardening, metal fabrication as well as transport, a large hospital, metal plating, vehicle washing and many other smaller scale businesses one would expect to need trade effluent permits, but don’t have one.

We asked Southern Water how this tiny number of permits can be explained. While they have been good at engaging with us to discuss this and other questions about the scheme, it has taken a very long time and sometimes been impossible to get clear answers to questions, so it was only in mid-December 2025 that we had confirmation that there really are only 15 trade effluent permit holders on the Isle of Wight.

Technical experts heading Southern Water’s wastewater recycling project and their trade effluent department pointed out that some companies may have alternative arrangements for collecting trade effluent, sending it by tanker & ferry for treatment on the mainland, though they didn’t offer examples of this. They accepted that there are un-permitted discharges of trade effluent into the Island’s sewer system and explained they don’t insist that all businesses comply with the law (1991 Water Industry Act) because for some it could be onerous to have to take measures to pre-treat effluent before discharging into the foul sewer and because there are no realistic alternative treatment/disposal facilities on the Isle of Wight. (because they haven’t built them). The wastewater recycling design team’s technical lead told us that in view of this, rather than seeking to prevent chemical waste from entering the sewage catchment their approach is to ‘design to treat’, i.e. to accept illegal discharges as a given in the overall design of the project and rely on the principle that the system will be able to unfailingly remove whatever harmful contaminants it encounters before reintroducing the water to the Island’s drinking water supply.

On the basis of all of the above information it is our view that significant amounts and possibly the majority of trade effluent on the Isle of Wight is being discharged illegally into the proposed source water for this scheme without meaningful control by Southern Water or anybody else. We do not believe it is a water company’s place to set aside statutory regulations for commercial reasons or ones of convenience. This situation has now been allowed to go on for 34 years. At a pivotal point for the Isle of Wight’s water supply, rather than taking the opportunity to tackle the problem of illegal trade waste discharges, Southern Water’s scheme, if allowed to go ahead unchanged, would bake these historic failings into the system for the next 60 years.

Effects

A lax approach to contamination of sewage with synthetic waste has real-world consequences.

The River Medina is now one of the most polluted in the world in terms of micro-plastic contamination. https://www.manchester.ac.uk/about/news/new-research-uncovers-environmental-crisis-in-isle-of-wight-estuary/

The Eastern Yar River from which almost all the Island’s drinking water is abstracted is contaminated with PFOS (perfluorooctanesulfonate) and PBDE (polybrominated diphenyl ethers).

https://environment.data.gov.uk/catchment-planning/WaterBody/GB107101005971

Heavy metals and synthetic chemicals from illegal and legal trade effluent are concentrated in sewage sludge which is marketed as ‘biosolids’ and used as fertiliser. This extends the chemical contamination of sewage to land, crops and food.

PFAS (per and polyfluoroalkyl substances)

PFAS are a group of thousands of synthetic "forever chemicals" known for resisting heat, water, and stains, used in products like cookware, textiles, and firefighting foam. Their extremely stable structure means they persist in the environment and bioaccumulate in plants and animals. Some have been banned due to serious health effects, but many are in use and those that are not still persist in the environment. The controversy around PFAS pollution is expanding rapidly as the scale of contamination and its harms become better understood.

The National Poo Museum asked Southern Water many times about measured levels of PFAS in the Eastern Yar River and in the Island’s drinking water. After nine months of not getting a clearresponse to these questions, the museum paid for two of its directors to have their own blood tested for 27 PFAS chemicals. Blood samples were analysed by World Health Laboratories in the Netherlands.

There is no internationally recognised safe level for PFAS in blood, but the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine states that ‘Cumulative PFAS levels under 2 ng/mL are not expected to exert negative health effects’. https://www.ccjm.org/content/92/8/463

Both sets of results show combined blood PFAS levels around 12ng/mL. The proportions of individual chemicals differ between the two sets of results, but PFOS is by far the largest component in each case. Exposure routes for PFAS vary between locations and individuals, but contaminated drinking water is widely recognised as a key factor for most people and we know that the Eastern Yar, from which almost all the Isle of Wight’s water supply is abstracted, is contaminated with PFOS. https://environment.data.gov.uk/catchment-planning/WaterBody/

GB107101005971

To be clear, these results don’t demonstrate that drinking water was the cause of elevated PFOS in the blood samples, but they do show concerning PFAS levels and a wider testing programme would help identify where exposure originates.The technical lead for the wastewater recycling scheme acknowledged in December 2025 that the averaged total PFAS for its main raw water source, the Eastern Yar is 0.024 ug/L. She cited sewage as the source of this pollution, but suggested that this is not a worrying figure and not ‘industrially high’. However this puts the river into the Drinking Water Inspectorate’s Tier 2 out of three for raw water sources which places it on a watch list and requires specialised treatment to bring final treated water within acceptable levels.

We asked Southern Water several times since March this year what the levels of PFAS are in the sewage influent to Sandown WwTW, because this is the raw water source for the proposed scheme, but again we didn’t receive any objective information. The recycling scheme’s technical lead told us that it was not expected to be heavily contaminated with PFAS. We are concerned that the project’s technical lead either didn’t know the levels or didn’t want to share the objective data which must have been collected about PFAS levels in the sewage stream and instead spoke about the ability of the proposed multi-barrier system to eliminate ‘the good, the bad and the ugly’. Given the lack of oversight of trade effluent, we would expect PFAS levels in this sewage stream to be variable and periodically high and that even with high percentage removal by the proposed multi-barrier system, initial high raw water concentrations may still lead to an overall increase in exposure to these and other chemicals of emerging concern. Without access to data about the measured levels of these chemicals in the sewage it is impossible to know. But we do know that despite asking verbally and in writing since March 2025 we haven’t been able to get a written assurance from Southern Water that the scheme will not increase the Isle of Wight population’s exposure to PFAS chemicals.

Because of the combination of a lack of trade effluent oversight, a lack of statutory regulation of PFAS discharge, and confirmation from Southern Water that this sewage stream can contain up to 20,000 litres per day of landfill leachate*, our view is that this must be considered a uniquely polluted source of drinking water, only justifiable if absolutely no alternative exists. We don’t believe this is the case. * Southern Water consent to the discharge of trade effluent - consent ID 16847

Litigation - general

As detection of PFAS becomes simpler and its harms become better understood and easier to demonstrate, public consciousness and court cases round the world are increasing rapidly. 3M has agreed to pay over 10 billion dollars in damages for PFAS pollution in the US and in Italy the directors of Miteni were jailed for a combined 141 years for contaminating drinking water supplies.

An internal Severn Trent report in 2024 suggests that ‘PFAS is now the top concern for water industry insurers, overtaking climate change and flooding’. SVE4.28 PFAS updated regulations.

Draft Determination representations 28 August 2024 p19

Litigation - re. planning application 25/01619/FUL

Such cases mainly involve PFAS producers and water companies, but we are concerned that the Isle of Wight Council may put itself at risk of future class-action lawsuits if it does not reject or impose strict conditions on this planning application to minimise risk to public health, environment and businesses. Our view is based on the 2022 High Court ruling on a case between Primavera Associates Ltd. and Hertsmere Borough Council. The judge rejected Primavera’s case against the council’s planning authority, but the reasons he gave for the judgement are the very reasons why litigation may be successful in relation to this application. We believe the three points below support this view:

1) 2) Mr Justice Leech stated that while the Town and Country Planning Act is not passed for the benefit of individual applicants for planning permission and does not generally confer a duty of care to them, it was intended to provide a regulatory system for the benefit of the public as a whole and planning authorities do have a duty of care in their decision-making to the interests of the public they represent. Leech J: Approved Judgment Primavera v Hertsmere BC BL-2019-002244 paragraph 221(1) p109. https://www.ftbchambers.co.uk/images/uploads/documents/

Primavera_Associates_Ltd_v_Hertsmere_BC_BL_2019_002244_%28Approved_Judgment%29_%281%29.pdf

Granting approval for this current planning application (after having been made aware of the likelihood of significant illegal chemical discharges into the scheme’s catchment) without making approval conditional on a) thorough, transparent investigation of the situation regarding illegal trade effluent discharges and b) rectification of all illegal discharges into the 3) scheme’s source water, would constitute an action and not simply an omission or a failure to confer benefit on the public of the Isle of Wight. Our understanding is that this would give rise to a common law duty of care to this population and individuals within it. BL-2019-002244 section 32 p91

Approval, after having been made aware of the above concerns and without imposing conditions to effectively remedy them would risk making the Isle of Wight Council party to creating a source of danger to the public. BL-2019-002244 Section 193 (65) p93

The above is not expert opinion, but our own reading of the judgement. We have sought advice from the Environmental Law Foundation and they have accepted the case - but with the Christmas break we were told they couldn’t respond by 5th January 2026. We’ll be happy to share their conclusions about the legality of allowing continued illegal trade effluent discharges to be designed into this scheme and whether there is a risk that the Isle of Wight Council might be held partially accountable for any harms arising from this, once they’ve been able to respond.

No matter how well-designed the treatment plant, large reverse osmosis systems are notoriously challenging to maintain. Safety within this design is completely reliant on there never being a systems failure during the coming 60 years which allows contaminants, including from illegal discharges to pass through, causing harm to people, the environment or businesses. While Southern Water’s past performance may not be a reliable indicator of future events, it may be.

Failings in public consultation

Misinformation

A central message in Southern Water’s consultation materials about this project is that ‘water’ recycling is safe, established and proven in other parts of the world. They held up examples from Namibia, Singapore and the U.S. However, we believe Southern Water did not make people aware of important differences between the safety principles that underly the schemes they referred to and what they are planning to do on the Isle of Wight. Wastewater recycling projects in Namibia, Singapore and California all put in place careful source control as an indispensable design prerequisite. They achieve this in different ways:

In Namibia, industrial and domestic waste streams were entirely separated at the outset of the project. ‘An essential non-treatment barrier (management barrier) is the strict separation of domestic and industrial used water, i.e. only domestic sewage is utilized for potable reclamation.’

Direct potable reuse – a feasible water management option J. Lahnsteiner, P.Rensburg, J. Esterhuizen

https://iwaponline.com/jwrd/article/8/1/14/38008/Direct-potable-reuse-a-feasible-water-management

In Singapore strict source control is enforced (https://smartwatermagazine.com/news/pub-singapores-national-water-agency/safeguarding-singapores-newater-production-preventing) and recycled wastewater, though technically drinkable is in fact supplied for industrial use.

In California and other US states protocols were drawn up requiring meticulous management of industrial contaminants at source.“Effective source control requires a complete inventory of all industries that have the potential to impact the wastewater collection system, the contaminants being discharged, and a plan to safely manage them. Typical source control practices such as concentration and mass loading limits, chemical substitution, discharge prohibition, on-site monitoring, and other measures, should be in place before any potable reuse program is implemented, regardless of the treatment configuration adopted.” (my underlining & italics)

National Water Research Institute - Enhanced Source Control Recommendations for Direct Reuse in California 2020 p12 https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/docs/dpr-esc-2020.pdf

Safety and reliability of the system for turning sewage into drinking water is understandably a key concern for people who would have to consume it. Our understanding is that none of the source control measures above are part of the plan for the Isle of Wight, so having used the safety record of these schemes to persuade people of the future safety of Southern Water’s scheme amounts to significant misinformation in the consultation process. In our own conversations with the public we found many of those who were initially positive about ‘water recycling’ did not understand that sewage contains industrial waste and none remained supportive once they understood thatsewage effluent recycling schemes elsewhere control or exclude industrial contamination from the source whereas the one proposed for the Isle of Wight would not.

Sometimes misinformation was even more clear-cut. When we asked specifically about trade waste and chemical pollution in the sewage entering Sandown wastewater treatment works,

Southern Water gave the following written responses:

“Sandown Wastewater Treatment Works has no trade waste licence currently. Trade waste must be tankered to works on the mainland.”

“No trade waste is treated at Sandown Wastewater Treatment Works.”

At first we took this at face value and believed that the recycling scheme would only use domestic effluent. But we eventually realised the answers given above weren’t plausible (the ferries aren’t laden with queues of trade effluent tankers) and we later discovered that they are untrue.

Following this up was a long process though and involved freedom of information and Environmental Information Regulations requests. It seems fair to assume many participants in the consultation were and still are unaware that the sewage to be used will contain chemical trade waste, both legally and illegally discharged. If people had known this it’s likely it would have been an important factor in forming their overall views about the scheme.

We believe it has been a deliberate policy to gloss-over the true nature of this project during the public consultation, presenting a sanitised version to avoid objections. A small practical example of this is that Southern Water suggested we remove a reference to ‘wastewater recycling’ from our own consultation material and replace it with ‘water recycling’.

Southern Water did recognise that some of the information they had provided hadn’t been adequate and arranged for expert responses to be given. But though more accurate, these responses confirmed our concerns while other questions have still never been clearly answered.

Gunning Principles

Stephen Sedley QC defined that a public consultation is only legitimate when these four principles are met:

• 1. proposals are still at a formative stage. A final decision has not yet been made, or predetermined, by the decision makers.

• 2. there is sufficient information to give ‘intelligent consideration. The information provided must relate to the consultation and must be available, accessible, and easily interpretable for consultees to provide an informed response.

• 3. there is adequate time for consideration and response. There must be sufficient opportunity for consultees to participate in the consultation. There is no set timeframe for consultation, despite the widely accepted twelve-week consultation period, as the length of time given for consultees to respond can vary depending on the subject and extent of impact of the consultation.

• 4. ‘conscientious consideration’ must be given to the consultation responses before a decision is made. Decision-makers should be able to provide evidence that they took consultation responses into account.

For the reasons below, we do not believe Southern Water’s consultation met these legal requirements.

Already decided:

It is clear from the consultation brochure published by Southern Water that this was never

intended to be a consultation that meets the criteria above, but simply a PR exercise to appear to fulfil the requirement to carry out consultation before submitting their planning application.

CEO Lawrence Gosden’s own words in his introduction to the brochure literally spell out that they have already decided the ultimate outcome.

‘So, as you’ll see in the following pages of this document, we plan to take some of the Island’s wastewater and treat it to a much higher standard so it can be used as a source for drinking water supplies…This approach, called water recycling, is widely used around the world. Tapping into this new source of water will mean we can significantly reduce the amount we need to take from the environment – especially during a drought.’ Southern Water consultation brochure.If they’ve already decided, its not a consultation.

Lack of information:

Realistic alternative ways of meeting the Isle of Wight’s water needs were not adequately presented in public consultation material. Examples include enhanced reservoir and aquifer storage both on and off the Island and moving river abstraction points to tidal limits. In these documents Southern Water described the wastewater recycling project as their ‘most preferred solution’ (https://www.southernwater.co.uk/media/u20pvcq2/isle_of_wight_consultation_brochure.pdf p11) and gave no meaningful information about the alternatives. The consultation material was one-sided, highlighting benefits of the proposed scheme, but with no information on its significant drawbacks which include very high long-term costs to customers, high energy consumption etc.

So participants could not come to an informed conclusion about how this solution compares with other possible solutions in terms of cost, safety, environmental impact, longevity etc.

With only one option presented, the consultation was similar to an election where only one candidate is allowed to stand.

Low key consultation methods.

We have been struck by the high proportion of local people who are unaware of the proposed changes to their water supply. There have been quite a few public consultation events, but we believe the numbers who attended were low and the events have passed under the radar of most local residents. Southern Water could have informed all their customers across the Island about the project and the public consultation meetings by including information with their water bills, but as far as we know they decided not to do this.

Conclusions

In view of all the points above, the scale of this application and scale of its potential impacts, we request

1) that planning approval for this application should not be given without making it conditional on -

a) a thorough, transparent investigation of the situation regarding illegal trade effluent

discharges and b) rectification of all illegal discharges into the scheme’s catchment.

2) that time should be set out for a genuine public consultation to be carried out with adequate, accurate and balanced information widely shared about the advantages and disadvantages of this and other possible solutions to the Isle of Wight’s water challenges.

3) that an initial extension of the period for public comment should be made to 02/02/2026 to reflect the difficulty in accessing expert advice over the Christmas and New Year holiday period.

We hope our comments, information and requests will be given fair consideration and emphasise that while many are critical, we have no interest in making life difficult for Southern Water, but do have a strong interest in making our sewage and water as clean as possible.