Hawkchurch STW

Storm overflow run by South West Water, discharging into Blackwater River/stream.

Inlet storm overflow at sewage treatment works Honiton and Sidmouth constituency
Right now
No live feed
South West Water does not publish a live status for this overflow; only the annual figures below are available.

"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
31spills
at least 511 h discharging on 32 days · counted by us, not yet official · 5 discharges whose end the feed did not report (counted, no hours)
2025 official
37spills
488 h · −30% on 2024
Rank in South West Water
#467
of 1,357 overflows by 2025 spills (1 = most)
Monitor in 2025
95.7% working
Long-term average 69.3 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. 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.

2022
76 spills · 283 h
2023
111 spills · 462 hmonitor 100%
2024
53 spills · 421 hmonitor 99.1%
2025
37 spills · 488 hmonitor 95.7%
2026so far
31 spills · at least 511 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
Performance - SW Infiltration
Long-term review
Not asset maintenance - hydraulic capacity
Investigation
UWWTR investigation completed
Improvement work
No improvement action in reporting period
Monitored since
2021
Water body
Blackwater River

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

27 discharge periods since 5 Jan 2025, 5 whose end the feed never gave. 18 of them come from South West Water's own event-duration-monitoring records (published on Stream, Jan 2025 – Feb 2026); this overflow has no live feed, so nothing after that log is held. The official annual count is the figure to quote.

Show 17 earlier
StartedEndedDischarge time
6 d 5 h
7 d 0 h
4 d 22 h
11 h 42 min
2 h 58 min
22 h 4 min
5 h 28 min
4 h 32 min
17 h 14 min
18 h 45 min
3 h 38 min
1 d 16 h
18 h 46 min
1 d 16 h
3 d 2 h
15 h 38 min
4 d 8 h

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 33 raw blocks were merged into 27 continuous discharge periods (gaps under 15 min joined).

Rain nearby last 30 days

Nearest live rain gauge: Rainfall gauge nr Axminster, 4.4 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
Weycroft Bridge (River Axe) · 3.4 km
Nearest rain gauge
Council area
East Devon District
South West Water's own name for it
HAWKCHURCH STW_SO_HAWKCHURCH
Site reference
SBB00548 · permit SWWA 2412
Coordinates
50.80365, -2.93717

Concerned about this overflow?

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

Write to the MP

The Environment Agency's return places this overflow in the Honiton and Sidmouth constituency. An MP can ask the company and the regulator questions on a constituent's behalf. These words carry the official figures; change them as you like.

The link opens Parliament's own "Find your MP", which gives the MP's name and how to write to them. FloodRadar sends nothing and keeps nothing you write. Check the constituency against your own address: an MP acts only for people who live in it.

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. Times are shown in UK local time. FloodRadar republishes the monitor's status and the EA's figures; it does not measure discharges itself. Constituency and council area from the EA's return: contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026.