Brierdene Pumping Station

Storm overflow run by Northumbrian Water, discharging into North Sea.

Storm discharge at pumping station Bathing water

Linked bathing water: Whitley Bay, 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 (1 day ago).
Times are UK time. Company feed updated 4 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
13spills
13 h discharging on 15 days · live feed, before 28 Feb via Top of the Poops, not yet official
2025 official
28spills
62 h · −28% on 2024
Rank in Northumbrian Water
#375
of 1,547 overflows by 2025 spills (1 = most)
Monitor in 2025
100% working
Long-term average 35.7 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 the live feed: our own log of it begins on 28 February, and the discharges before that are Top of the Poops' record of the same feed. The official figure is published next spring.

2021
35 spills · 125 hmonitor 99.9%
2022
28 spills · 52 hmonitor 100%
2023
48 spills · 145 hmonitor 100%
2024
39 spills · 149 hmonitor 100%
2025
28 spills · 62 hmonitor 100%
2026so far
13 spills · 13 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 Northumbrian Water's annual return to the Environment Agency for this overflow.

High-spill review
High spill threshold not met
Long-term review
Not asset maintenance - Hydraulic capacity
Investigation
Operational investigation completed
Improvement work
Operational improvement ongoing
Monitored since
2019
Water body
Tyne and Wear

"High spill threshold not met" means this overflow did not spill often enough to trigger the EA's formal high-spill review for that year. It is not a statement that the spills were harmless.

Discharges we have recorded

750 discharge periods since 9 Jan 2020. 732 of them come from Northumbrian Water's own event-duration-monitoring records (published on Stream, Jan 2020 – Dec 2025); the live feed adds anything after that. The official annual count is the figure to quote.

Show 30 earlier (of 750)
StartedEndedDischarge time
27 min
31 min
31 min
32 min
35 min
27 min
26 min
28 min
33 min
31 min
56 min
47 min
43 min
30 min
53 min
1 h 36 min
31 min
1 h 13 min
41 min
32 min
28 min
34 min
50 min
1 h 33 min
2 h 43 min
32 min
30 min
32 min
1 h 31 min
37 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 1,409 raw blocks were merged into 750 continuous discharge periods (gaps under 15 min joined).

What the feed showed

FloodRadar's own record of every change of state Northumbrian Water's live feed has shown for this overflow, kept since : 3 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 3 states
SeenStatusSinceLatest discharge
Not discharging →
Discharging → no end yet
Not discharging →

Rain nearby last 30 days

Nearest live rain gauge: Rainfall gauge nr Whitley Bay, 1.7 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
North Shields (Tide) · 6.1 km
Nearest rain gauge
Site reference
NWL00198 · permit 235/1241
Coordinates
55.06200, -1.43852

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: © Northumbrian 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", and this year's figures before 28 February, 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.