Norton Headworks Wps

Storm overflow run by Southern Water, discharging into The Solent.

Storm discharge at pumping station Bathing water Shellfish water

Linked bathing waters: Colwell Bay, classified Excellent for 2025; Totland 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 (38 min ago).
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
62spills
at least 487 h discharging on 60 days · counted by us, not yet official · 32 discharges whose end the feed did not report (counted, no hours)
2025 official
50spills
170 h · −45% on 2024
Rank in Southern Water
#68
of 970 overflows by 2025 spills (1 = most)
Monitor in 2025
99.9% working
Long-term average 54.0 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 Southern 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.

2024
91 spills · 470 hmonitor 100%
2025
50 spills · 170 hmonitor 99.9%
2026so far
62 spills · at least 487 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.

Twin outlet

Southern Water runs another overflow within 300 m that also discharges into The Solent. They share the sewer and the storm, so one outlet's figures are only part of what reaches the water.

0m Norton Headworks WpsSWS00621Norton Transfer Iow Inlet CEO - 108544 9spills in 2025

This overflow (Norton Transfer Iow Pumped CEO - 109524): 50 spills in 2025. Distances are between the published outlet points. The names in brackets are Southern Water's own, from its return.

What the 2025 return says

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

High-spill review
Performance - GW inundation
Investigation
UWWTR investigation ongoing
Improvement work
No improvement action in reporting period
Monitored since
2016
Water body
Solent

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

2,390 discharge periods since 12 Jan 2021, 32 whose end the feed never gave. 2,356 of them come from Southern Water's own event-duration-monitoring records (from its Rivers and Seas Watch service, Jan 2021 – Oct 2026); the live feed adds anything after that. The official annual count is the figure to quote.

Show 30 earlier (of 2,390)
StartedEndedDischarge time
19 min
not captured, before not captured
not captured, before not captured
25 min
not captured, before not captured
not captured, before not captured
35 min
not captured, before not captured
not captured, before not captured
not captured, before 24 min
not captured, before 14 min
not captured, before not captured
not captured, before not captured
not captured, before not captured
not captured, before not captured
not captured, before not captured
25 min
not captured, before not captured
not captured, before 13 min
4 min
5 min
not captured, before not captured
4 min
5 min
6 min
4 min
4 min
6 min
1 h 40 min
4 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 8,645 raw blocks were merged into 2,390 continuous discharge periods (gaps under 15 min joined).

What the feed showed

FloodRadar's own record of every change of state Southern Water's live feed has shown for this overflow, kept since : 59 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 40 states
SeenStatusSinceLatest discharge
Not discharging →
Not discharging →
Discharging → no end yet
Discharging → no end yet
Discharging → no end yet
Not discharging →
Not discharging →
Discharging → no end yet
Discharging → no end yet
Not discharging →
Not discharging →
Not discharging →
Not discharging →
Not discharging →
Not discharging →
Not discharging →
Not discharging →
Not discharging →
Discharging → no end yet
Discharging → no end yet
Not discharging →
Not discharging →
Not discharging →
Not discharging →
Discharging → no end yet
Discharging → no end yet
Not discharging →
Not discharging →
Not discharging →
Not discharging →
Not discharging →
Discharging → no end yet
Discharging → no end yet
Discharging → no end yet
Not discharging →
Discharging → no end yet
Not discharging →
Discharging → no end yet
Discharging → no end yet
Not discharging →

Rain nearby last 30 days

Nearest live rain gauge: Rainfall gauge nr Freshwater Bay, 3.5 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
Yarmouth (Tide) · 1.0 km
Nearest rain gauge
Southern Water's own name for it
Norton Transfer Iow Pumped CEO - 109524
Site reference
SWS00622 · permit A00846
Coordinates
50.70848, -1.51632

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: © Southern 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. Spill-event history: Southern Water's Rivers and Seas Watch release history (riversandseaswatch.southernwater.co.uk), © Southern Water. Shown by FloodRadar: only releases Southern Water marks Genuine and that have ended; those it marks Not Genuine or still has under review are left out. 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.