Wharf Street CSO 44184

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

Storm overflow on the sewer network Ashton-under-Lyne constituency
Right now
No live feed
United Utilities 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
35spills
at least 78 h discharging on 35 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
59spills
202 h · same as 2024
Rank in United Utilities
#317
of 2,242 overflows by 2025 spills (1 = most)
Monitor in 2025
99.9% working
Long-term average 65.9 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
67 spills · 275 hmonitor 100%
2023
78 spills · 289 hmonitor 100%
2024
59 spills · 218 hmonitor 100%
2025
59 spills · 202 hmonitor 99.9%
2026so far
35 spills · at least 78 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

United Utilities runs another overflow within 300 m that also discharges into River Mersey. They share the sewer and the storm, so one outlet's figures are only part of what reaches the water.

0m Wharf Street CSOUUP02106Wharf Street CSO 2spills in 2025

This overflow (Wharf Street CSO): 59 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
Not asset maintenance - Hydraulic capacity
Investigation
Env Act (SODRP) investigation ongoing
Improvement work
Env Act (SODRP) improvement ongoing
Monitored since
2019
Water body
Tame (Swineshaw Brook to Mersey)

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

176 discharge periods since 1 Jan 2024, 1 whose end the feed never gave. 131 of them come from United Utilities's own event-duration-monitoring records (published on Stream, Jan 2024 – Dec 2025); 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 176)
StartedEndedDischarge time
4 h 30 min
30 min
30 min
2 h 30 min
3 h 30 min
1 h 0 min
1 h 0 min
1 h 0 min
1 h 14 min
30 min
2 h 16 min
30 min
1 h 0 min
44 min
2 h 0 min
6 h 0 min
30 min
30 min
1 h 16 min
1 h 16 min
1 h 14 min
46 min
1 h 44 min
1 h 14 min
2 h 16 min
1 h 44 min
1 h 30 min
12 min
not captured, before not captured
44 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 181 raw blocks were merged into 176 continuous discharge periods (gaps under 15 min joined).

Rain nearby last 30 days

Nearest live rain gauge: Rainfall gauge nr Warrington, 1.4 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
Westy (River Mersey) · 2.0 km
Nearest rain gauge
Council area
Tameside District (B)
United Utilities's own name for it
Wharf Street CSO
Site reference
UUP02107 · permit 016940472
Coordinates
53.38620, -2.59026

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 Ashton-under-Lyne 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. 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.