Schoolchildren can't play outside due to sewage smell, says MP

Southampton Itchen MP Darren Paffey told the House of Commons that Bitterne Park Primary School children sometimes have to stay inside to avoid feeling foul of the smell.

The Portswood Sewage Treatment Station is just a stone’s throw from the school – they face opposite each other and a small stretch of the River Itchen is all that separates them.

Mr Paffey was speaking on the passing of the Water (Special Measures) Bill, which would allow the government to block bonuses for executives who pollute waterways and enable automatic fines for water companies’ wrongdoings.

The entrance to Bitterne Park Primary School. (Image: Newsquest) The Labour MP – who is campaigning for bathing water status for the River Itchen - said that the children "expressed their outrage" in a way that "grown-ups are often less good at".

READ MORE: Cancer patient left without water after Southern Water outage

Mr Paffey said: “A couple of weeks ago, I visited Bitterne Park primary school, which is just across the River Itchen from Southern Water’s treatment works.

“I met the school’s Eco Warriors, an inspiring group of schoolchildren who are passionate about improving their environment.

“They told me that the stench from the treatment works sometimes makes them feel so ill that they cannot play outside at lunchtime.

The Portswood Sewage Treatment Works are visible over the river, directly opposite the grounds of Bitterne Park Primary School. (Image: Newsquest) “That is what happens when there are more than 1,000 hours of sewage dumping, as there were last year alone—a 350 per cent increase on the year before.”

Bitterne Park Primary School's field backs onto the River Itchen and faces the treatment plant.

The network at the Portswood plant relies on gravity, so when sewage waste gets stuck and does not naturally run downhill, it can sometimes start to give off smells.

The plant monitors the range of its odour with special equipment maps, but the MP affirmed that the stench is not something that "our children should have to accept as normal".

Southern Water has come under particular fire over the last few weeks after 58,000 households were left without water for two days in the run-up to Christmas due to a technical issue at their Testwood Water Supply Works.

The Portswood Sewage Treatment Works - pictured - is just over the other side of the river. (Image: Newsquest) Despite talking before the outage, Mr Paffey told the House of Commons of the big bonuses water executives receive despite polluting the River Itchen.

He said: “We have seen and heard how water companies have piled up debt and demanded bail-outs from the taxpayer, all the while paying bumper bonuses—more than £41 million since 2020—to executives who fail to meet the most basic standards of competence.

The school's main field and playing equipment back onto the River Itchen - the sewage plant is visible through the trees from this field. (Image: Newsquest) “Meanwhile, it is my constituents and those of other colleagues here who have paid the price—in higher water bills, and in the frustration of seeing a river that they treasure polluted by negligence.”

READ MORE: Behind the scenes at Portswood Wastewater Treatment Works

When asked about the stench, Southern Water told the Echo they were spending more than £8 million on improvements to the Portswood site, with works starting February 2024.

A spokesperson for Southern Water said: “So far during the works, teams have added a new treatment process on site called ferric dosing, reducing odours and phosphates, and have been adding extra oxygen to watercourses to support the local environment.

“And by summer 2025 we will have added a giant new storm tank capable of holding back increased flows during rainfall – stopping it from being released into the environment as storm overflows.”

The water company believe the new tank will improve the site’s storm overflow capacity by 30 per cent.