'I drove to Cornwall to get away from the smell': heatwave worsens sewage crisis as UK infrastructure buckles

The smell of 'rotting eggs and diarrhoea' has become so unbearable that Barry Jupp, 74, drove to Cornwall for a week just to get away from it. His home on Alsops Road in Willesborough, Ashford, sits at the end of a cul-de-sac next to a Southern Water pumping station that has been blighting residents since it became operational in 2010. The foul stench, which finds its way inside through aluminium plates to the front of the site, has grown increasingly worse. 'It's not like once a week or fortnight – it's all day, every day,' said Jupp, whose parents bought the property in 1955. 'It started getting really bad in September 2025 – I remember leaving one window open upstairs and it stunk the whole house out.' Southern Water acknowledged the issue, saying its teams are investigating and have scheduled a clean of the sewage tank. A spokesperson added: 'While the hot weather could be a contributing factor…' That hot weather is the same record-breaking heatwave that, according to experts, may already be linked to thousands of excess deaths. From overheating homes and buckling railways to schools, hospitals and reservoirs struggling to cope, questions are mounting over whether Britain's infrastructure was ever designed for the climate it now faces. On Channel 4 News' The Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy asked why the UK remains so unprepared. He was joined by Professor Rebecca Willis of the University of Manchester, environmental lawyer and Uplift Executive Director Tessa Khan, and architect Smith Mordak to discuss how the country can prepare for a warmer future and whether the debate around Net Zero has become more political than practical. For Jupp, the immediate future is uncertain. He fears he will never be able to sell his home because of the smell. 'I can't sell up because nobody wants to buy it,' he said. 'Southern Water needs to be fined thousands of pounds and then build another sewage plant in Ashford because it's not fit for purpose.' He added: 'This smell is trespassing on my property.'