In the spring of 2024, residents of the south Devon harbour town of Brixham kept falling ill. Their symptoms – including “awful stomach complaints, bad diarrhoea and severe headaches” – went on for weeks. A retired GP who ventured to the pub after finally recovering from the illness recalled that, when someone asked those present to “raise their hand if they hadn’t had the bug”, not a single hand went up.
Given the controversies about raw sewage discharges that were swirling at the time, the drinking water seemed an obvious suspect. Many local residents contacted their water provider, but by late April, South West Water was still insisting the water was safe to drink, and that all tests for contaminating bacteria had returned negative.
