Mere Drive / Rake Lane CSO (374y5)

Storm overflow run by United Utilities, discharging into Slack Brook.

Storm overflow on the sewer network Salford constituency
Right now
Discharging now
Since on · 3 h 59 min so far.
Times are UK time. Company feed updated just now

"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
21spills
at least 21 h discharging on 21 days · live feed, before 28 Feb via Top of the Poops, not yet official · 1 discharge whose end the feed did not report (counted, no hours)
2025 official
14spills
41 h · −22% on 2024
Rank in United Utilities
#1,148
of 2,242 overflows by 2025 spills (1 = most)
Monitor in 2025
99.9% working
Long-term average 40.2 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 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
85 spills · 80 hmonitor 100%
2022
37 spills · 33 hmonitor 100%
2023
47 spills · 173 hmonitor 97.9%
2024
18 spills · 33 hmonitor 99.4%
2025
14 spills · 41 hmonitor 99.9%
2026so far
21 spills · at least 21 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.

Other outlets here

United Utilities runs 2 other overflows within 300 m that also discharge into Slack Brook. They share the sewer and the storm, so one outlet's figures are only part of what reaches the water.

12m CSO Adj To Number 214 Rake LanedischargingUUP00581Rake Lane CSO 19spills in 2025
13m Queensway CSOUUP01599The Queensway CSO 14spills in 2025

This overflow (Mere Drive/Rake Lane CSO): 14 spills in 2025. Distances are between the published outlet points. The names in brackets are United Utilities's own, from its return.

What the 2025 return says

From United Utilities'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 completed
Monitored since
2021
Water body
Irwell (Croal to Irk)

"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

161 discharge periods since 1 Jan 2023, 1 still open, 1 whose end the feed never gave. 130 of them come from United Utilities's own event-duration-monitoring records (published on Stream, Jan 2023 – Dec 2025); the live feed adds anything after that. The official annual count is the figure to quote.

Show 30 earlier (of 161)
StartedEndedDischarge time
1 h 24 min
46 min
20 min
42 min
1 h 46 min
22 min
30 min
28 min
56 min
38 min
18 min
not captured, before not captured
8 min
22 min
20 min
10 min
10 min
4 min
1 h 28 min
48 min
32 min
4 min
18 min
34 min
28 min
4 min
14 min
4 min
1 h 8 min
20 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 243 raw blocks were merged into 161 continuous discharge periods (gaps under 15 min joined).

What the feed showed

FloodRadar's own record of every change of state United Utilities's live feed has shown for this overflow, kept since : 11 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 11 states
SeenStatusSinceLatest discharge
Discharging → no end yet
Not discharging → no end yet
Not discharging → no end yet
Monitor offline → no end yet
Not discharging → no end yet
Monitor offline → no end yet
Not discharging → no end yet
Not discharging → no end yet
Monitor offline → no end yet
Discharging → no end yet
Not discharging →

Rain nearby last 30 days

Nearest live rain gauge: Rainfall gauge nr Bolton, 3.8 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
Littleton Road River (River Irwell) · 1.8 km
Nearest rain gauge
Council area
Salford District (B)
United Utilities's own name for it
Mere Drive/Rake Lane CSO
Site reference
UUP01286 · permit 016993604
Coordinates
53.51318, -2.31575

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.

Write to the MP

The Environment Agency's return places this overflow in the Salford 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.

Find the MP for Salford

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.

Live status: © United Utilities 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 "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. Constituency and council area from the EA's return: contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026.