The majority of new developments today apply for the sewers to be adopted under Section 104 of the Water Industry Act. This provides for the developer to lay the sewers, and for the undertaker (South West Water) to adopt them as public once the development has been completed. There are a number of safeguards to ensure that they have been laid to a suitable standard. The most common reason for delay is because the entire development may not yet be completed, or that the developer has forgotten to inform us that they have completed work.

Occasionally there may be minor defects which have been identified and for which the developer needs to rectify and in a very small number of cases, the sewers have not reached the minimum acceptable standard and the developer is unwilling to pay to bring them up to scratch. In the first instance, please contact the developer if you have any queries on a delay to the adoption.