Water company apologies for response after thousands of wipes and pieces of plastic washed up on Hartlepool beach

Thousands of wipes and plastic sanitary products were left strewn all over the beach at Seaton Carew after a sewer outfall at Mainsforth Terrace was discharged into the sea by Northumbrian Water.

It caused complaints and concern from a number of users of the beach.

Diane Watson, an environmental artist, said it was particularly bad on Friday, June 12.

“The beach was littered with thousands of baby wipes and sanitary products,” she said. “It’s quite an awful reflection on people's misunderstanding on what should and shouldn't be flushed down the toilet, but I think most people probably don't realise that water companies are allowed to flush this waste out to sea!”

Dog walker Geoff Lilley has lodged a complaint with Northumbrian Water. The former councillor said: “It’s not the sort of stuff you want on the beach.

“Northumbrian Water went down to have a look at it but nobody to try to tidy up the mess that they created, and that's rather annoying.”

A Seaton resident commented on social media that they had never seen so much waste washed up on the beach.

A Northumbrian Water spokesperson said: “At times of heavy rainfall, combined sewer outfalls are used as a relief valve on our network, to protect customers’ homes.

“This happens with consent from the Environment Agency and the outfalls discharge waste that is heavily diluted by the volumes of rainfall that it takes to fill the network in the area affected.

“When this happens, we make an effort to get a team to clean up any debris as soon as possible.

“However, while we have made a number of visits to the area to clear debris this week, we apologise that we weren’t able to get out as quickly as we would normally have liked over the weekend.

“As this heavy rain followed a sustained dry period, it appears to have brought additional debris with it, such as items that people have wrongly flushed.”

Northumbrian Water reminded people that plastics and wet wipes should never be put into the network. Wipes contributed towards 64% of all blockages last year.

Related: The Hartlepool army waging war on litter

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