Sewerage leaflet - South West Water

Customer
Code of Practice
2007/2008
Our
sewerage and
sewage disposal
service

We maintain a network of public sewers which takes the waste
water from your property for treatment and disposal and we are
obliged to provide and maintain an adequate sewerage system for
the region we operate in.
Foul, surface water and combined sewers
The sewerage system in your area is likely to be one of the following three types:
■ A foul sewer takes only waste water, such as waste from kitchens and bathrooms
for example.
■ A surface water sewer takes only domestic rain water from roofs and some
hardstanding areas (it may also take some highway drainage water).
■ A combined sewer takes both waste water and surface water. This type of sewer
was laid mainly before the 1960s and it tends to be more susceptible to flooding
during heavy rainfall. Generally, we no longer accept new surface water
connections to public combined sewers.
■ Purpose Public sewers are specifically provided to convey foul drainage and in the
case of surface water sewers and combined sewers, domestic surface water drainage.
Our sewers are not intended to drain floodwater from rivers etc or run off from
agricultural land or deal with highway drainage. The Highways Authority have their
own responsibility for highway drainage even in locations where much of it is
connected to one of our sewers.
Responsibility for pipework
The pipework which comprises the sewerage system can be categorised in three ways:
a drain; a private sewer; or a public sewer.
A drain is a pipe through which foul or surface water flows from one property to a
sewer. Responsibility for the drain up to the point of connection with the sewer lies
with the owner of the property. (Unless the pipe has been adopted as a Public Lateral
drain by South West Water).
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Services Helpline: 0800 169 1144

A private sewer is a pipe which collects and conveys foul or surface water from several
properties. A private sewer may connect to a public sewer or a private sewage
treatment works. Responsibility for a private sewer lies jointly with the owners of the
properties which it serves.
A public sewer is one we are responsible for and is shown as such on the statutory
sewer map (please see page 4). We are responsible for public sewers.
In most cases our sewers are situated in roads or public open places. In certain
circumstances, however, our sewers may run through private gardens, in which case
we have a right of access for maintenance and legal protection against you building
over, or near, our sewer. Where we need to lay or maintain pipes in your land we will
observe a Code of Practice for working on private land. A copy of the ‘Code of Practice
for Pipe-Laying’ is available free of charge by telephoning our Services Helpline. The
Water Services Regulation Authority (Ofwat) has a duty to investigate complaints
about the company’s exercise of works powers on private land, unless he considers
that the company has not had an opportunity to do so. Please write to South West
Water, Customer Services, PO Box 4, EX2 7HS in the first instance.
Protection against flooding
from public sewers
We aim to provide adequate capacity in our sewers to ensure homes are not
flooded by water escaping from them. The weather will always create a flooding
risk as it is not financially feasible to provide sewers of sufficient capacity to cope
with extremely high levels of rainfall. Flooding from sewers can also occur for
other reasons, including blockages.
If there is a sewer blockage or a pumping station breakdown which threatens to flood
domestic premises, we aim to have a representative on site as quickly as possible and
to start work within four hours. If there is a problem with the public sewerage
system, please call our Services Helpline.
If you are affected by water escaping from a public sewer call our Services Helpline.
We will help with any external clearing-up necessary as a result of flooding caused by
water escaping from one of our sewers. If your property has been flooded internally,
we can help you find a specialist contractor who will carry out the clean-up operation
and liaise with your insurance company on your behalf.
(for Minicom users only: 0800 169 9965) 3

If any damage has been caused, please contact your insurance company as soon as
possible. We are not liable for any damage caused by sewer flooding unless we have
been negligent and have helped cause the problem.
If you are not insured or your insurers decline to help, please contact us. A statement
regarding our policy on the Flooding of Residential Properties from Sewers appears
later in this leaflet.
If your home is flooded, you may be entitled to a refund of your sewerage charges
under our Customer Promise. You may also be entitled to a partial refund of charges
if your garden has been flooded (for details of the Scheme please see our booklet
entitled ‘What to Expect’).
Sewage treatment
The sewage effluent which we discharge to inland or tidal waters must comply with
statutory standards. The Environment Agency sets these standards and checks to
ensure that we meet them. It records the results of its samples in a public register.
All sludge from a sewage treatment works must be disposed of in accordance with
statutory requirements and Government licences.
We operate our sewage treatment works in accordance with good practice, but
sewage inevitably smells. We try to reduce odours as much as possible but cannot
guarantee to eliminate them altogether. If odours are causing you a problem, please
call our Services Helpline 0800 169 1144.
The statutory sewer maps
It is our duty to produce a map showing the location of every public sewer or disposal
main or lateral drain which we are responsible for or which we have agreed to adopt.
You have the right to inspect this map. If you would like to examine the map, please call
our Services Helpline and we will advise you where the relevant map can be inspected.
If you wish us to provide you with information from the map rather than inspect it
yourself, there may be a charge for this service (details of the charge in the current
financial year are contained within our ‘Charges Scheme’).
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Services Helpline: 0800 169 1144

Adoption of private sewers
If your home is served by a private sewer, you can apply for us to adopt it so that we,
rather than you, become responsible for its operation and maintenance. Generally,
we will not adopt a private sewer unless it conforms with the standards to which we
construct public sewers, or the persons responsible for the sewer are prepared to
undertake any necessary work to bring the sewer up to standard at their own
expense. You can appeal to the Water Services Regulation Authority (Ofwat) if you
consider that we have refused to adopt a sewer unreasonably or have imposed
unreasonable conditions (our customer booklet entitled ‘What to Expect’ contains
more information about arbitration).
If you are buying a property, insist that your solicitor asks whether the sewer serving
it is adopted. If it is not, you may be responsible for its maintenance, repair or
replacement and you will therefore want to check its condition.
Connection of drains or
private sewers to a public sewer
If you live in an existing property and providing that there is not a specific planning
condition which advises that you cannot connect to the sewer, you are entitled to
have your drain or private sewer connected to our public sewers, subject to certain
practical requirements. You will though have to pay our expenses involved in making
the connection.
You will need to supply us with details of the drain or private sewer to be connected
and how the connection will be made. We will let you know within 21 days whether
we can accept your proposals and what the costs will be. We can refuse permission if
we consider that the mode of connection or the condition of the connecting pipe
would prejudice the condition and operation of our sewers. If you disagree with our
decision, the matter may be referred to the Water Services Regulation Authority
(Ofwat) for determination (our customer booklet entitled ‘What to Expect’ contains
more information about arbitration).
Full details of the expected standards for sewer connections are available in our
Application Form for Sewer Connections.
(for Minicom users only: 0800 169 9965) 5

You will have to pay:
■
■
A charge for our inspecting the work or undertaking it ourselves.
A contribution to our costs of providing the overall sewerage system.
This is known as an infrastructure charge.
For further information on the sewerage infrastructure charge, please refer to
Section 11 of our ‘Charges Scheme’. Copies are available free of charge from our
Services Helpline.
Once you have paid the charges you must give us 14 days notice of the day you, or
your builder, propose to do the work so that we may inspect it to ensure that it meets
our standards.
If we opt to make the connection to the sewer ourselves, any dispute about the costs
we charge for making the connection may be referred to the Water Services
Regulation Authority (Ofwat) for determination (our customer booklet entitled ‘What
to Expect’ contains more information about arbitration).
Requisitioning and provision
of public sewers
If you live in an area which is not served by a public sewer, you cannot demand that
we provide one at our expense. However, if you and your neighbours – or your local
authority – asks for a sewer to be provided we will provide one, but you and the other
applicants – or your local authority – will have to pay any difference between the
income we receive from charges for the disposal of waste water to the sewer and our
reasonable costs in providing the sewer in each of the following 12 years. We will
also want some security from you before doing the work. For our part, we must
provide the sewer within six months of your agreeing that we do so. Unless you agree
to an extension of time, you may have a legal claim against us if we exceed the 6
month period or the agreed extension and you sustain loss or damage as a result.
Any dispute in respect of the amount we require you to pay; or the undertakings or
assurances we expect you to give; or any extension to the period of six months within
which we must provide a public sewer; or the locations at which private sewers or
drains connect to the public sewer may be referred to arbitration. (Our customer
booklet entitled ‘What to Expect’ contains more information about arbitration).
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Services Helpline: 0800 169 1144

First time sewerage
Under Section 101A of the Water Industry Act 1991, new public sewers can be
required to be provided by South West Water to serve existing properties with private
waste water disposal facilities.
If a new sewer is provided, an individual householder would be responsible for
payment of a sewerage infrastructure charge and sewer connection charge; installing
and paying for a drain to connect her or his home to the new sewer; making safe any
private disposal system no longer required; and paying sewerage charges to South
West Water once a connection has been made.
If you or your neighbours have private sewage disposal facilities such as septic tanks,
soakaways or cess pools and are experiencing problems, then you may wish to
consider a connection to a public sewer.
It is now possible to requisition a lateral drain as well as a new public sewer to
connect with the public sewerage system. This work can be very costly to the
requisitioner if, for example, a long lateral drain or sewer is needed. However, this
method of providing an extension of the public sewerage system is still possible and
may be the appropriate solution in some cases.
The Water Industry Act 1991 (Section 101A) allows for new sewers to be provided at
public expense by South West Water Limited. A number of conditions must be met
though for this to apply.
Who qualifies?
The following criteria must be met before sewers can be considered for construction
under Section 101A:
■
■
■
The properties to be served must have a requirement for a drain used for
domestic sewerage purposes.
Two or more properties must be experiencing amenity or environmental
problems. Examples of problems are odour, flooding of land or property,
pollution of watercourses.
The problems are not caused by inadequate maintenance.
(for Minicom users only: 0800 169 9965) 7

■
Qualification must also satisfy economic criteria to ensure that a public sewer
connection is an economically viable solution.
It is also necessary that the most appropriate solution is to provide a public sewer,
but this will be judged once the extent of the problem is known.
Normally the problem will be a long-standing one. There will often have been
correspondence with the Environment Agency or with the Environmental Health
Department of your Local Authority. In the most serious cases, these bodies may be
prepared to take action by issuing formal notices, or they may already have done so.
How much does it cost?
A householder connecting to the new sewerage system will be responsible for
■ Payment of the standard Infrastructure Charge for the sewerage service.
■ Payment of the standard Connection Charge.
■ The cost of installing the drain to connect your property to the new sewer and
making the connection.
■ Making safe any private systems no longer required.
Once the connections are completed, householders will be billed for the sewerage
service in the normal way.
What do I need to do and
what then happens?
If you think that you and your neighbours have a problem with your existing private
sewerage system which could be resolved by the provision of sewerage facilities,
then you may contact South West Water Limited, the Environment Agency or your
local Environmental Health Officer as appropriate.
In normal circumstances, the Environment Agency or the Local Authority will
undertake some survey work to establish the extent of the problem to determine the
details of the existing private systems if any, and whether adequate maintenance has
been carried out.
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Services Helpline: 0800 169 1144

Once this preliminary work is carried out, the company will prepare a preliminary
design and put an approximate cost to the work. A decision will then be made on
whether the scheme could be viable.
It may be appropriate for a public meeting to be held to enable discussion of
problems, possible solutions and any other issues.
If, at this preliminary stage, a scheme appears to be viable, the company will then
undertake detailed studies to establish with more confidence details of the design
and its cost.
Applications will then need to be completed by householders applying for the
sewerage service to show that they accept the costs incurred. The scheme can then
be constructed.
What do I do if I am not satisfied?
You may appeal to the Environment Agency for a determination.
The Environment Agency will then notify you of its decision which is final. If public
sewer works are not to be carried out, the Agency may make recommendations or
give guidance on drainage matters, as appropriate.
What else do I need to know?
First Time Sewerage schemes are intended to help solve problems that are too costly
for individual householders to fund by requisitioning sewers. However, public
sewerage schemes are very costly, and will usually become viable with the fullest
uptake of connections from all householders.
(for Minicom users only: 0800 169 9965) 9

Statement of Practice
regarding claims for compensation arising
out of the flooding of residential properties
from sewers
We aim to provide adequate capacity in our sewers to ensure homes are not flooded
by water escaping from them in normal wet weather conditions. Heavy rain will
always create a risk of flooding, but, we are working hard to protect homes against
flooding from sewers. Flooding from sewers can also occur for other reasons, the
most common being a blockage in the system. Blockages can occur almost anywhere
without warning and we will usually need to be contacted to clear them.
If your home does flood because there has been so much rain that a sewer cannot
cope with the amount of water entering it, or because there has been a blockage in a
sewer, we are not liable in law for any damage unless we have been negligent and
helped cause the problem. Customers should therefore insure their goods,
belongings and property against damage arising from flooding.
However, in the event of flooding from our sewers please contact us immediately on
0800 169 1144 (Minicom 0800 169 9965) as we can assist with cleaning-up. Also
where water has escaped from our sewer into your home, we will refund – or credit to
your account if all charges have not been paid – an amount equal to the sewerage
charges payable by you in the year in which the flooding occurs (subject to a
maximum of £1,000 per customer per property). A payment will be made each time
flooding occurs.
Where water escaping from a sewer has flooded your garden only, and where we are
notified at the time, we will make a payment, or credit to your account, an amount
of up to 50% of your annual sewerage charges depending on the extent and nature
of the flooding. A maximum of 50% of the annual charges will be paid in any one
financial year.
Unless rainfall has been exceptional, these payments will be made automatically
provided that we are contacted at the time of the flooding.
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Services Helpline: 0800 169 1144

If you suffer loss or damage as a result of flooding please contact your insurance
company as soon as possible to make a claim.
If you are not insured, or your insurance company will not fully meet your claim,
please contact us. While we are not liable to reimburse you for any expenses you may
incur as a result of flooding, it is our policy, wherever it is reasonable, that you
should not face undue financial hardship because of flooding which has not occurred
because of any fault of yours.
Where you are asking us to meet an expense not covered by your insurers, our
agreement to do so must be obtained before you spend any money. In nearly all
cases, we will not agree to meet any claim after you have already spent the money.
Where replacement cost is paid, the damaged goods will become the property of
South West Water. .
If you wish to submit a claim, please do so in writing to South West Water, Customer
Services, PO Box 4, Exeter, EX2 7HS.
Any payments which may be made to you will be made on an ex-gratia basis and will
not be a legal admission of liability for any damage caused.
(for Minicom users only: 0800 169 9965) 11

Printed on 100% recycled paper
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South West Water Limited, Peninsula House
Rydon Lane, Exeter EX2 7HR
Registered in England No. 2366665
www.southwestwater.co.uk
70270 3/07