Septic services in Penzance & surrounding rural parishes
The far-west parishes of Penwith around Penzance — the farms of the Land's End peninsula and the Mount's Bay hamlets — are extensively off-mains, relying on septic tanks and soakaways.
What we can arrange around Penzance
Kernow Septic is a local guide and enquiry service — we put you in touch with firms covering Penzance and handle the checking that comes first. How it works.
Emptying & servicing Most requested
Scheduled emptying and servicing for tanks and treatment plants near Penzance.
Repairs
Backups, blockages and failed soakaways put right.
Treatment plant upgrades
Upgrades where a septic tank no longer meets the rules.
Nearby areas
The local picture around Penzance
Since 1 January 2020 a septic tank must not discharge directly to a watercourse — around Penzance that means the short coastal streams of Mount's Bay and the Lamorna and Penberth valley streams. A tank that still does needs upgrading to a treatment plant or a drainage field, and it usually surfaces at the point of sale. How the discharge rules work →
The Environment Agency designates 6 bathing waters on this stretch of coast — Penzance, Wherry Town, Long Rock, Marazion, Sennen and Porthcurno . Private drainage in these catchments is monitored accordingly, and siting near protected waters affects what you can install. Look any beach up on the EA's bathing water profiles .
Penwith is the Land's End granite: thin moorland soils over hard rock on the uplands, where percolation tests routinely fail and a packaged treatment plant with a carefully designed drainage field — or a permitted alternative — is often the only compliant answer. What a percolation test involves → · BGS geology viewer
Not sure if your system is compliant?
Since 2020 the Environment Agency's General Binding Rules ban septic tanks discharging straight to a watercourse. Run your setup through our free checker to see where you stand near Penzance.
Run the free compliance check