{"id":518457,"date":"2026-04-07T23:03:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T23:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/518457\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T23:03:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T23:03:14","slug":"new-stormwater-tank-being-built-at-gyllyngvase-beach-falmouth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/518457\/","title":{"rendered":"New stormwater tank being built at Gyllyngvase Beach Falmouth"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n A new stormwater tank<\/a> is being built by South West Water near Gyllyngvase Beach, with the aim of reducing discharges during heavy rainfall in the longer term.\n<\/p>\n

\n The storage tank is being built under Gyllyngvase Long Stay Car Park and will hold waste water at times of heavy flow.\n<\/p>\n

\n It follows years of vigorous public local campaigning and increased pressure from this new Labour Government on private water companies like Pennon\/South West Water to reinvest profits into ageing infrastructure.\n<\/p>\n

\n Work is expected to be completed this spring.\n<\/p>\n

\n Jayne Kirkham, MP for Truro and Falmouth, visited the site last week where she was shown the work taking place.\n<\/p>\n

\n She said: \u201cI\u2019m pleased to see action being taken. Across Cornwall<\/a>, the impact of decades of underinvestment in infrastructure is clear to see, with many residents familiar with sewage being discharged into their rivers, lakes, and seas.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI want to thank all the people who have been campaigning locally to clean up Falmouth’s waters for so many years.”\n<\/p>\n

\n She described the overflow tank and the water firm’s programme of improvements for the Falmouth area over the next two years as “a step in the right direction”, but added: “However, the whole of Cornwall’s coast obviously also needs to see similar substantial improvements at a faster pace.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Cornwall has faced repeated disruption caused by sewage failures. Investigations by Surfers Against Sewage found the water company was responsible for the highest number of illegal discharges during dry weather, totalling 46,191 hours of illegal spills in 2025 alone.\n<\/p>\n

\n More recently, residents and businesses in Penryn were once again disrupted when Commercial Road was dug up following another sewage leak, with emergency tankers brought in from across the duchy, causing gridlock and frustration for traders and residents alike. More disruption is to come.\n<\/p>\n

\n Jayne said her constituency inbox continued to overflow with concerns about sewage leaks, poor communication from SWW, and delays to compensation for affected businesses.\n<\/p>\n

\n However, she added that there were now \u201csigns of progress\u201d.\n<\/p>\n

\n There has been widespread criticism over pollution levels and excessive executive bonuses while the tank at Gyllyngvase is the start of an extensive programme by the company to drastically reduce sewage spills across the Falmouth area in the next two years.\n<\/p>\n

\n Jayne also pointed to the Water (Special Measures) Bill giving the Environment Agency new powers to prosecute law-breaking water executives, ban bonuses when standards are not met, and reinvest fines directly into cleaning up polluted waterways, and welcomed the Government’s Water White Paper proposing a full overhaul of water regulation to strengthen environmental and financial accountability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new stormwater tank is being built by South West Water near Gyllyngvase Beach, with the aim of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-518457","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}