Newquay wades in to clean up sewage

By David Harris

Hoteliers in a Cornish resort are turning to a private company in a bid to clean up the town's seawaters.

The Newquay Hotel & Caterers Association is hoping Swansea-based Starfish Industries will win agreement from the regional water company for its plans to construct a submerged inshore treatment plant.

The association's chairman, Paul Siveter, said it had approached the company because the plant seemed a sensible and environmentally friendly solution.

"The plant would be self-contained, under the sea and require no re-routing of sewer pipelines. And best of all, the water coming out at the end would be completely clean," he said.

Starfish Industries claims that its ambitious scheme could be the answer for seaside resorts up and down the country where sewage is pumped straight into the water.

Brighton, Weymouth, Scarborough, Bridlington and Littlehampton are all potential targets.

The plant was created by the founder of Starfish Industries, Gerald Clark, who plans to make presentations to water boards nationwide to demonstrate its benefits.

"No new technology is involved. We have just put established offshore construction techniques together with standard sewage treatment machinery," Mr Clark said.

Resorts such as Newquay have been dogged by bad publicity because of sewage being pumped into the sea with little treatment, particularly in the light of reports by bodies such as the Tidy Britain Group.

Convincing South West Water is the next step for Starfish Industries - a task that could rest as much on a financial as on a technological argument.

Mr Siveter said: "The proposal is that Starfish would organise the capital investment, operate the plant and then lease it to South West Water."

This arrangement would be important, because the water board has no capital funds available to upgrade Newquay's sewage treatment. This is because the resort's sea water is above European minimum cleanliness standards.

"Ironically, we would be better off in some ways if we had failed the European test, because then there would be more money available to improve things," said Mr Siveter.

If Newquay does get its revolutionary new undersea plant, there is talk of it becoming a tourist attraction - so visitors could see the town's sewage going through the treatment process.