South West Water has blamed the recent drought combined with a heavy downpour for massive 'sewage' overflow which poured into the sea at the weekend.

A video posted on Twitter purported to show sewage pouring into the usually pristine waters of St Agnes bay turning it brown way out to sea. However it is now claimed 'rigorous testing' by DEFRA shows it is not actually sewage.

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Testing shows what was REALLY in the brown sea videoed at St Agnes

The Executive Director & Vice President @oceana in the UK and Former CEO Surfers Against Sewage retweeted the video saying: "The is one big sewage slick at St Agnes."

There was a strong reaction to the video originally filmed by Cove Cottages with the hashtag #speechless

Dragon Deborah Meaden from BBC's Dragon's Den programme retweeted the video saying: "Oh my… that’s us disgusting, awful, devastating!".

Some called it a 'Halloween horror'

A statement issued by South West Water said: "Following heavy, localised rainfall this, a permitted storm overflow triggered at Trevaunance Cove in St Agnes.

"Storm overflows are designed to release excess storm water when prolonged rainfall occurs to prevent the risk of sewage backing up by allowing a controlled release."

Confronted with the video on BBC Breakfast this morning Mark Spencer MP (Minister of state for Food) tried to blame local residents for the problem.

He said that heavy rain had caused the sewage spill but also claimed it was a result of people setting up their home drainage incorrectly

"People need to check where their down right goes, your water spout off your roof, as it's very important it goes into a top water drain," he told BBC Breakfast presenter John Kay.

Mr Kay said that local people had told them that the rain had not been that bad that day.

On 20 October 2021, 265 MPs voted with the Government to reject an attempt by the House of Lords to toughen up the approach to the discharge of sewage, with only 22 Conservative MPs rebelling and voting against the Government, including Derek Thomas.

All other Cornish Tory MPs voted  to block the amendment.

There was some humour derived from the incident after a national newspaper quoted from a parody Twitter account for a fake former Conservative MP Sir Michael Take, which should of set off alarm bells.

He responded to the video in a Tweet saying: "This is sewage being sensibly dispersed at St Agnes in Cornwall today.

"You’ll see the beach is empty so no-one is being harmed. This would of course have been stopped by the nit picking EU.

"Brexit means we can now employ such SAFE procedures.
"Good news!"