🚯 Sewage in England's rivers
Water companies are allowed to dump untreated sewage through "storm overflows" when it rains. Here's how often they do it — the worst companies, rivers and sites, what's discharging right now, and how to complain.
450.4k
Spills in 2024
450,398 discharges
3.6M
Hours of sewage
3,614,526 hours
12,410
Sites that spilled
of 14,182 monitored
756
At bathing waters
1,119 shellfish waters
🚨 Expelling right now
Storm overflows reporting as actively discharging this minute, from the live water-company feed.
🕒 Live feed obtained 4 min ago
1 overflow discharging now · 1 started in the last 6 hours
Cassop Stw
CHAPMAN BECK · Northumbrian Water
since 20 Sep, 04:17
🏭 Worst water companies
By total storm-overflow spills in 2024 (official Environment Agency figures).
1
United Utilities
1,977 sites spilled · 34 at bathing waters · Complain →
77,817
450.8k hrs
2
Yorkshire Water
1,949 sites spilled · Complain →
68,164
430.3k hrs
3
Severn Trent Water
2,071 sites spilled · Complain →
62,085
454.2k hrs
4
South West Water
1,159 sites spilled · 295 at bathing waters · Complain →
56,173
544.4k hrs
5
Wessex Water
1,151 sites spilled · 28 at bathing waters · Complain →
43,931
404.9k hrs
6
Anglian Water
1,284 sites spilled · 42 at bathing waters · Complain →
43,919
449k hrs
7
Northumbrian Water
1,346 sites spilled · Complain →
40,792
246.6k hrs
8
Southern Water
830 sites spilled · 229 at bathing waters · Complain →
29,355
304.5k hrs
9
Thames Water
525 sites spilled · Complain →
23,061
298.1k hrs
10
Dwr Cymru Welsh Water
118 sites spilled · 15 at bathing waters · Complain →
5,101
31.8k hrs
🌊 Worst-hit waterways
Rivers and watercourses taking the most spills in 2024 (names normalised; open-sea outfalls excluded).
1
River Avon
227 overflows
7,809
46.9k hrs
2
River Derwent
97 overflows
4,539
34.1k hrs
3
River Calder
87 overflows
4,068
23.7k hrs
4
River Aire
91 overflows
3,749
20.7k hrs
5
River Tame
97 overflows
2,906
14.1k hrs
6
River Trent
84 overflows
2,777
21.7k hrs
7
River Irwell
73 overflows
2,665
12.2k hrs
8
River Severn
63 overflows
2,565
19.9k hrs
9
River Ouse
48 overflows
2,536
26k hrs
10
River Don
61 overflows
2,270
14.8k hrs
11
River Frome
53 overflows
2,083
16.6k hrs
12
River Wharfe
38 overflows
1,965
14.8k hrs
13
River Wear
51 overflows
1,954
15k hrs
14
River Mersey Estuary
28 overflows
1,899
12.7k hrs
15
River Mersey
45 overflows
1,852
8.3k hrs
16
River Stour
51 overflows
1,831
16.5k hrs
17
River Tamar
29 overflows
1,682
13.2k hrs
18
River Rother
49 overflows
1,646
11.2k hrs
19
River Tyne
49 overflows
1,641
7.4k hrs
20
River Eden
33 overflows
1,589
12k hrs
🎯 Worst individual sites
The single overflows that spilled most in 2024.
1
SALCOMBE REGIS STREAM · South West Water
366
8,772 hrs
2
KENWITH STREAM · South West Water
329
554 hrs
3
TRIB. OF WOOLLEIGH BROOK · South West Water
327
1,573 hrs
4
BOURNE · Wessex Water
310
6,466 hrs
5
Lavant Wwtw Bathing water
LAVANT & GW VIA WETLAND · Southern Water
287
6,829 hrs
6
WEAVER (S) · South West Water
283
6,198 hrs
7
COBSHAW DYKE · Yorkshire Water
282
5,128 hrs
8
LITTLE MERE RIVER · South West Water
279
5,372 hrs
9
FOWEY ESTUARY (E) · South West Water
264
711 hrs
10
UNNAMED TRIB RIVER TILL · Northumbrian Water
261
5,365 hrs
11
Mill Brook · Thames Water
261
5,353 hrs
12
TRIB OF QUINNY BROOK · Severn Trent Water
260
5,219 hrs
13
THE TIDAL RIVER OUSE · Southern Water
259
4,824 hrs
14
CHEW · Wessex Water
258
4,642 hrs
15
TRIBUTARY OF THE RIVER TEST · Southern Water
252
5,481 hrs
🕐 When do spills start?
Spill starts by hour and weekday (recent live data). Rain drives most of it — darker = more spills begin then.
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Hour of day (0–23) · lighter → darker = fewer → more spills
✉️ Seen a spill? Report it
Pollution you can see — sewage in the water, dead fish, foul smells — should be reported. It builds the case regulators act on.
Environment Agency 24-hour incident hotline: 0800 80 70 60
Complain to the water company:
📍 Sewage near you
See discharges and river levels for your area.
Where this comes from. Annual rankings are the Environment Agency's official Event Duration Monitoring (EDM) returns for 2024 (spills and hours per overflow, as published). "Expelling right now" is the water companies' live EDM feed (updates ~every 15 minutes). The
"when do spills start" heatmap is built from spill starts we've captured since early 2026. Waterway names are normalised approximately, so a few
may merge or split. England only. Not an emergency service — for pollution in progress call the EA hotline above.
Updated 2026-09-20 04:56 UTC.