Shaftesbury Wrc

Storm overflow run by Wessex Water, discharging into Stirchell Brook.

Inlet storm overflow at sewage treatment works North Dorset constituency
Right now
No live feed
Wessex 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
14spills
18 h discharging on 16 days · counted by us, not yet official
2025 official
20spills
16 h · −39% on 2024
Rank in Wessex Water
#450
of 1,285 overflows by 2025 spills (1 = most)
Monitor in 2025
99.9% working
Long-term average 29.6 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 Wessex Water's monitor log. The official figure is published next spring.

2021
20 spills · 18 hmonitor 98.8%
2022
22 spills · 22 hmonitor 100%
2023
37 spills · 25 hmonitor 99.9%
2024
33 spills · 40 hmonitor 99.4%
2025
20 spills · 16 hmonitor 99.9%
2026so far
14 spills · 18 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 Wessex Water's annual return to the Environment Agency for this overflow.

High-spill review
High spill threshold not met
Long-term review
Performance - SW Infiltration
Investigation
Operational investigation completed
Improvement work
Operational improvement completed
Monitored since
2019
Water body
Stirchell Brook

"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

51 discharge periods since 4 Jan 2025. 46 of them come from Wessex Water's own event-duration-monitoring records (published on Stream, Jan 2025 – Aug 2026); this overflow has no live feed, so nothing after that log is held. The official annual count is the figure to quote.

Show 30 earlier (of 51)
StartedEndedDischarge time
50 min
8 h 36 min
40 min
1 h 24 min
52 min
10 min
14 min
32 min
1 h 4 min
2 min
16 min
16 min
8 min
8 min
16 min
28 min
6 min
4 min
8 min
30 min
6 min
24 min
2 min
10 min
22 min
6 min
4 min
18 min
1 h 30 min
22 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 61 raw blocks were merged into 51 continuous discharge periods (gaps under 15 min joined).

Rain nearby last 30 days

Nearest live rain gauge: Rainfall gauge nr Compton Abbas, 4.0 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
Motcombe (Motcombe Stream) · 3.8 km
Nearest rain gauge
Council area
Dorset
Wessex Water's own name for it
Shaftesbury Gears Mill Inlet
Site reference
WXW00975 · permit 401758
Coordinates
50.99366, -2.19874

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 North Dorset 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.