Bolton Street CSO

Storm overflow run by South West Water, discharging into English Channel.

Storm overflow on the sewer network Bathing water

Linked bathing water: St Mary's Bay (Devon), classified Excellent for 2025. Named in the company’s return to the Environment Agency. A name opens that bathing water’s official profile, with any pollution warning in the season. The classification is the Environment Agency’s for that bathing season, from all its samples there: it is not a reading of the water today, and it does not say what part this overflow played.

Right now
Not discharging
Last discharge ended on (2 days ago).
Times are UK time. Company feed updated 3 min ago

"Not discharging" means the company's monitor reports no discharge right now — not that the water is clean. The feed publishes status only; no discharge volume is measured.

2026 so far
38spills
at least 49 h discharging on 38 days · counted by us, not yet official · 1 discharge whose end the feed did not report (counted, no hours)
2025 official
64spills
79 h · +8% on 2024
Rank in South West Water
#249
of 1,357 overflows by 2025 spills (1 = most)
Monitor in 2025
100% working
Long-term average 58.7 spills a year

Year by year

The Environment Agency's official annual returns, counted the EA's way (12/24-hour spills). 2026 is our own running count, the same way, from South West Water's monitor log and the live feed. The feed reports only each overflow's latest discharge, so a discharge it moved past before we saw it end is counted as one spill with no hours: the hours are a floor. The official figure is published next spring.

2021
48 spills · 66 hmonitor 100%
2022
49 spills · 70 hmonitor 100%
2023
71 spills · 118 hmonitor 100%
2024
59 spills · 114 hmonitor 100%
2025
64 spills · 79 hmonitor 100%
2026so far
38 spills · at least 49 h

A spill is the EA's 12/24-hour count: the first 12 hours of a discharge count as one, each further 24 hours with discharge as one more. "Monitor" is the share of that year the monitor was working, so a 0 beside a working monitor is a real zero; "no data" means the monitor produced no usable data that year — not zero. Years before 2024 are matched to this site by name and location, because the EA's site IDs changed that year; a monitor figure beside one of them means the outlet's permit confirms the match.

What the 2025 return says

From South West Water's annual return to the Environment Agency for this overflow.

High-spill review
Not asset maintenance - hydraulic capacity
Investigation
Operational investigation ongoing
Improvement work
Env Act (SODRP) improvement ongoing
Monitored since
2010
Water body
Not part of a WFD catchment

This overflow spilled often enough to trigger the EA's high-spill review; the review line is the company's own stated reason.

Discharges we have recorded

310 discharge periods since 1 Jan 2024, 1 whose end the feed never gave. 298 of them come from South West Water's own event-duration-monitoring records (published on Stream, Jan 2024 – May 2026); the live feed adds anything after that. The official annual count is the figure to quote.

Show 30 earlier (of 310)
StartedEndedDischarge time
not captured, before not captured
4 min
10 min
11 min
24 min
58 min
17 min
15 min
1 h 13 min
21 min
22 min
21 min
1 h 5 min
29 min
1 h 6 min
17 min
19 min
12 min
16 min
24 min
29 min
51 min
1 h 3 min
26 min
12 min
11 min
26 min
33 min
6 min
12 min

The year figures above use the EA's 12/24-hour counting method, so they are comparable with the official figures; the monitor log's 413 raw blocks were merged into 310 continuous discharge periods (gaps under 15 min joined).

What the feed showed

FloodRadar's own record of every change of state South West Water's live feed has shown for this overflow, kept since : 13 states. The feed publishes its status now and its latest discharge, nothing older; the discharges above are read from this. It is here so the figures can be checked.

Show the last 13 states
SeenStatusSinceLatest discharge
Not discharging →
Discharging → no end yet
Not discharging →
Discharging → no end yet
Not discharging →
Not discharging →
Not discharging →
Discharging → no end yet
Not discharging →
Discharging → no end yet
Not discharging →
Discharging → no end yet
Not discharging →

Rain nearby last 30 days

Nearest live rain gauge: Rainfall gauge nr Brixham, 2.2 km away. Brown shading = when this overflow was discharging; ▼ = a discharge start.

Overflow shading is a timing match, not proof of cause — heavy rain and spills share a trigger. Times come from the water company’s event-duration monitor (site status only; no discharge volume is published).

Where it is

Nearest river gauge
Higher Brixham Horsepool Street (Higher Brixham Watercourse) · 2.1 km
Nearest rain gauge
South West Water's own name for it
BOLTON STREET_CSO_BRIXHAM
Site reference
SBB00130 · permit 201010
Coordinates
50.38146, -3.49271

Tell me when this overflow discharges

One message when the company's monitor reports a new discharge here. At most one every 6 hours.

Setting this alert needs JavaScript. The alerts you already have are on your alerts page.

The alert repeats the monitor's status: whether the overflow is discharging, not how much or why. It can only tell you about a discharge that starts after you turn it on.

Concerned about this overflow?

Report pollution you can see or smell to the regulator straight away; the company handles complaints about the overflow itself.

Live status: © South West Water storm overflow activity data, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Annual spill figures: Environment Agency Event Duration Monitoring return, © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right, Open Government Licence (OGL) v3.0. Storm-overflow spill events: © the respective water company, published on Stream (data.streamwaterdata.co.uk) under CC BY 4.0. Discharges marked "EA start/stop data": Environment Agency Event Duration Monitoring storm overflow start/stop detailed data, © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2026, Open Government Licence v3.0; the companies' monitor records as the EA received them, not verified by the EA. Discharges marked "via Top of the Poops", come from Top of the Poops' record of the same company feed, used under CC BY-SA 4.0: the feed's own start and end times as its pages print them, not their derived hours. Times are shown in UK local time. FloodRadar republishes the monitor's status and the EA's figures; it does not measure discharges itself.