Storm overflow run by Wessex Water.

Storm overflow on the sewer network Bathing water Bournemouth East constituency

Linked bathing waters: Christchurch Avon Beach, classified Excellent for 2025; Christchurch Friar`s Cliff, 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
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
13spills
at least 57 h discharging on 15 days · counted by us, not yet official · 6 discharges whose end the feed did not report (counted, no hours)
2025 official
15spills
45 h · −12% on 2024
Rank in Wessex Water
#548
of 1,285 overflows by 2025 spills (1 = most)
Monitor in 2025
100% working
Long-term average 16.0 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 Wessex Water's monitor log. 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.

2023
6 spills · 14 h
2024
17 spills · 50 hmonitor 99.8%
2025
15 spills · 45 hmonitor 100%
2026so far
13 spills · at least 57 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
Investigation
No investigation activity in reporting period
Improvement work
Operational improvement completed
Monitored since
2024
Water body
Christchurch Harbour

"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

36 discharge periods since 1 Jan 2025, 6 whose end the feed never gave. 25 of them come from Wessex Water's own event-duration-monitoring records (published on Stream, Jan 2025 – Jun 2026); this overflow has no live feed, so nothing after that log is held. The official annual count is the figure to quote.

Show 26 earlier
StartedEndedDischarge time
2 min
1 h 2 min
2 h 50 min
10 h 26 min
1 h 2 min
21 h 26 min
9 h 14 min
3 h 44 min
2 h 22 min
2 h 58 min
6 h 56 min
1 h 20 min
22 min
1 h 56 min
1 h 50 min
2 h 8 min
2 h 52 min
3 h 24 min
2 h 12 min
3 h 40 min
30 min
36 min
3 h 38 min
4 h 34 min
2 min
8 h 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 47 raw blocks were merged into 36 continuous discharge periods (gaps under 15 min joined).

Rain nearby last 30 days

Nearest live rain gauge: Rainfall gauge nr Hurn, 2.7 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
Iford Bridge (River Stour) · 1.0 km
Nearest rain gauge
Council area
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole
Wessex Water's own name for it
Bournemouth Iford Lane
Site reference
WXW00576 · permit Permit applied for
Coordinates
50.73376, -1.79748

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 Bournemouth East 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.