Sandside Pumping Station

Storm overflow run by United Utilities, discharging into River Bela.

Storm discharge at pumping station Morecambe and Lunesdale constituency
Right now
Status unknown
The live feed has not updated for 90 d 20 h.
Times are UK time. Company feed updated 90 days 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
1spill
2.2 h discharging on 1 day · live feed, before 28 Feb via Top of the Poops, not yet official
2025 official
1spill
1.2 h · up from 0 in 2024
Rank in United Utilities
#1,835
of 2,242 overflows by 2025 spills (1 = most)
Monitor in 2025
100% working
Long-term average 1.2 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 official figure is published next spring.

2021
1 spill · 1.5 hmonitor 100%
2022
0 spills · 0 hmonitor 100%
2023
2 spills · 4.1 hmonitor 100%
2024
0 spills · 0 hmonitor 100%
2025
1 spill · 1.2 hmonitor 100%
2026so far
1 spill · 2.2 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 United Utilities's annual return to the Environment Agency for this overflow.

High-spill review
High spill threshold not met
Investigation
No investigation activity in reporting period
Improvement work
No improvement action in reporting period
Monitored since
2020
Water body
KENT - transitional

"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

4 discharge periods since 9 Jan 2023. 3 of them come from United Utilities's own event-duration-monitoring records (published on Stream, Jan 2023 – Nov 2025); the live feed adds anything after that. The official annual count is the figure to quote.

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 5 raw blocks were merged into 4 continuous discharge periods (gaps under 15 min joined).

Rain nearby last 30 days

Nearest live rain gauge: Rainfall gauge nr Levens, 4.8 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
Beetham Weir (River Bela) · 1.8 km
Nearest rain gauge
Council area
Westmorland and Furness
United Utilities's own name for it
Sandside PS
Site reference
UUP01716 · permit 017370202
Coordinates
54.21999, -2.80222

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 Morecambe and Lunesdale 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.

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.