Oyster Company bosses believe Whitstable’s world-famous shellfish industry can weather the storm of the Southern Water sewage scandal.

The huge impact was laid bare at a public meeting this week, as fishermen blasted the utility firm for “destroying” the town’s reputation for seafood.

But Whitstable Oyster Fishery Company (WOFC) bosses insist the future is bright - with demand for its product now up on pre-pandemic levels.

Following massive investment in the purification process and testing, director James Green hopes the domestic market will hit new heights.

It would be a remarkable recovery for the firm, which was hit hard in the summer following revelations of Southern Water sewage leaks along the coast.

In a submission to a special meeting of Canterbury City Council’s community committee on Monday, Mr Green said Whitstable’s shellfish industry is still being “heavily affected”.

“In May and June, we had sales of Whitstable oysters of over £100,000 per month both domestically and internationally, including Hong Kong,” he said.

“After the first spill event at the end of June, the next three months we had close to zero sales as each time we tried to open, there was another spill event and associated cases of norovirus.”

Mr Green said the Hong Kong market - worth £30,000 a month to the firm - has still not reopened to the WOFC and there is no likelihood it will do so in the near future.

He said the company employs 12 people on its farm directly and many more depending on the supply of Whitstable oysters.

Mr Green asked: “How is Southern Water going to compensate both the industry and the people that will lose their jobs if their use of combined sewer overflows continues on a regular basis due to a lack of infrastructure investment?”

He said there are “many” outfalls in the area of its production site that are not monitored.

“We cannot access information online about their use by Southern Water or what the quality of the effluent from these is,” Mr Green added.

“Can Southern Water enter into an agreement to monitor these more closely and to sample the effluent to make sure they are not contaminated with sewage?”

In a report last week, one of Kent’s biggest shellfish operators said people have “lost confidence” in Whitstable produce, with customers snubbing its world-famous oysters amid the ongoing sewage scandal engulfing the county's coastline.

Graham West, who heads West Whelks in the town’s harbour, believes 150 years of heritage “has gone out of the window in one hit”.

He blamed his struggle to sell Whitstable shellfish on the saga surrounding Southern Water dumping waste water into the sea.

Whitstable Fisherman’s Association also submitted a series of questions at the council meeting on Monday.

The group said Southern Water discharges have caused “sheer devastation and distrust” of the fishing industry and undermined consumer confidence.

The submission added: “Is Southern Water aware it has destroyed our local shellfish and fish markets and the long-standing internationally-renowned reputation Whitstable has for its seafood?”

In response, Southern Water said the sources of bacteria getting into the sea are “many and varied” and not simply from its discharges.

The firm is looking into DNA speciation of bacteria to specifically identify where it is coming from.

It said: “Clearly there is an issue of confidence in the local fishing industry. Until we have been able to identify what the sources are of bacterial that are getting into the sea fisheries, we won’t be able to best identify what the route to the solution is.”

Southern Water added: “We are very happy to work more closely with the industry.”

Meanwhile, the WOFC has already been investing heavily in enhanced pre-harvesting assessments and protocols.

It is now carrying out intensive testing which costs about £1,600 per month from a commercial lab in Scotland.

The firm has also doubled its purification capacity and created a food-safe packing area with the help of a £150,000 grant.

And its efforts appear to be having an impact. While the company sold 18,936 oysters in January 2020, the total for January 2022 is 23,004 plus 13.2 tons to wholesalers - equivalent to 97,700 oysters.

This comes despite the impact of Brexit, and on top of the loss of the Hong Kong market.

Speaking after the meeting, Mr Green told KentOnline: “Brexit has effectively stopped the trade of market-sized oysters straight from the farm as they are classified, like most oyster production areas in the UK, as coming from a Grade B shellfish harvesting area.

"We have complete confidence that the oysters we produce will be more and more in demand..."

“We can sell part-grown oysters to France, for oyster farmers there to ‘grow on’. This, however, was made more difficult from Jan 17 this year, as an official veterinarian needs to inspect each export, which adds more cost and paperwork to each shipment.

“We have expanded the only other market that is now open to us which is within the UK by supplying direct to the consumer, to our own Whitstable restaurants and other well-known ones in the capital. But the main expansion has been in supplying to wholesalers which distribute throughout the UK.”

Mr Green says the reputation of shellfish produced in the UK has been “tarnished” by the sewage leaks. However, he is confident the situation will improve.

“Whitstable oysters have been about for many hundreds of years and have weathered many storms,” Mr Green said.

“We have complete confidence that the oysters we produce will be more and more in demand as people look to buy and eat sustainable produce from the UK that is both good for them and the environment.”

Mr Green says Covid, Brexit and water quality issues have presented “unprecedented” challenges, but also opportunities to expand the domestic market.

He added: “At its peak, Whitstable was sending up to 100 million oysters a year to markets in the UK. I have no reason not to believe that, in a very short time, all of our production will again be consumed in the UK - for the first time in over 100 years.”

Southern Water was hit with a record £90 million fine last July after unleashing up to 21 billion litres of sewage into protected waters between 2010 and 2015.

And it continues to face criticism over permitted releases off the Kent coast during periods of heavy rainfall, some of which have sparked warnings to bathers to avoid swimming in the sea.

Water firm bosses have threatened to take action to recover money from residents who have stopped paying their bills because of the sewage leaks.

A number of frustrated people - including Faversham-based rocker Bob Geldof - have vowed to withhold payment from the under-fire company until the issue is resolved.

Locals are refusing to pay the Southern Water portion of the charge, while still paying South East Water, which issues a joint bill on behalf of both firms.

Both companies have now said “further action will be taken to recover the non-payment”.