green circleHope Cove

Hope Cove consists of two sandy bays, Inner and Outer Hope. As the name suggests Inner Hope is more sheltered and is home to a small harbour tucked away behind the rocks at the northern end.

The northernmost beach is generally the more popular of the two, benefitting from a seasonal lifeguard service.

Both beaches are sandy and backed by the red sandstone cliffs familiar to this part of Devon. The wider harbour beach is a great place for exploring with rockpools at either end and often has something interesting going on.

Both beaches back onto the charming village which has plenty of facilities making it a popular family destination.

green circleOverflow locations

The map below shows the locations of the storm overflows that have the potential to impact water quality at this bathing water.

The map shows whether or not a storm overflow is currently active, the time and duration of the last spill at that location, and our investment commitments that are specific to that overflow.

Hope Cove storm overflow map

green circleWater quality sample results

The graphs below show the significant reduction in harmful bacteria in the Environment Agency’s (EA) water samples since the 1990s. E. coli and  Intestinal Enterococci exist in all open water - they are found in human and animal poo, and get into the water via sewage spills, road drainage, agricultural livestock, or wildlife and birds. The EA uses the levels of these bacteria to decide whether to award this beach bathing water status.

green circle 2025-2030 investment programme

To help reduce the risk of environmental impact from our sewerage network, and to contribute towards improving bathing water quality at Hope Cove Beach, we have earmarked circa £3,053,000 of investment up to March 2025*.

Work is underway to improve all three overflows by the end of March 2023 to target a performance of 2 significant spills (greater than 50 metres cubed) per bathing season on average.

A large storm water tank has been constructed underground at Galmpton sewage treatment works which will allow a greater volume of storage of rainwater. We are also purchasing additional land for solar energy generation.

In order to minimise further the need to use storm overflows, we are also undertaking work to increase the rate at which wastewater in our network can be pumped to the treatment works, which includes installing a new larger rising main (a pressurised sewer pipe) to the sewage treatment works.

By March 2023, we will also undertake some work to separate surface water from our sewerage network which will also help reduce the need for discharges from storm overflows. We have been working with local businesses to ensure rainwater is not reaching the network. 

We will continue to look at what further work would be beneficial after the initial work is complete. During prolonged rainfall in the winter, we can see that there seems to be other water coming into our network. This could be rain or surface water and may arise from wrong connections into our network. We are working to identify these misconnections although we do not see this in drier winters and so they can be difficult to find. We will look at what work is required to address the issues found.

Reducing non-sewage related wastewater from the network helps reduce the need for storm overflows to operate.

The 2025-2030 investment programme is currently being scoped out. If you’re a community group or part of a local network and would like to have your say see ‘Your Beach, Your Say, Our Investment’.

*Amounts earmarked for investment may change dependent on the final design of the optimal solution and costings provided by our supply chain.

green circle4 year overflow spill information

The data shown in the table below is the reported annual total spill number for each overflow which has been identified by the EA for this bathing water.

The assignment of an overflow to the bathing water does not always mean an impact will occur, it can be dependent on a number of factors such as tidal state and weather conditions. Sometimes it has been allocated just for investigation purposes and has no impact at all.

All data collected goes through vigorous quality assurance processes before being included in the counts. Sometimes debris can trigger false spills to be recorded, resulting in potentially higher than actual spill numbers.

Number of spills

  2023 2022 2021 2020
Galmpton Hope Cove sewage treatment works settled storm overflow, Salcombe 16 7 17 11
Inner Hope Cove pumping station overflow, Hope Cove 6 2 5 4
Outer Hope Cove pumping station overflow, Hope Cove 56 38 75 80
Picture of a blue Cornish beach

Tell us about your beach

We're inviting local community and stakeholder groups to work with us, as we consider where we need to prioritise our investment for 2025.

Your Beach, Your Say, Our Investment
Picture of a dark storm over some hills

More about storm overflows

We know that as a water company, we have a big part to play in improving our network and reducing the number of discharges. We also know there's lots more work to do.

Find out more

The beach profiles were created in line with information provided by our partners, Environment AgencyRNLIKeep Britain TidyMCS - Beach Guide and British Beaches.

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