Storm overflow register · Severn Trent Water

Bromsgrove sewage works: storm overflow spills 2025

Bromsgrove sewage treatment works, run by Severn Trent Water, has 1 monitored storm overflow discharging to Tributary of River Salwarpe. In 2025 it recorded 11 spills totalling 77 hours, against 32 spills and 57 hours in 2024. By hours spilling, it ranks 293 of 435 Severn Trent Water works, where 1 spilled longest.

Works size: 55,972 population equivalent (BROMSGROVE STW, UWWTD 2018). Used for the spill volume estimate.

Every spill in 2025

Each blue mark is one spill, placed by when it started and sized by how long it lasted. Hover over a mark for the date and duration.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecBromsgrove (Fringe…5 Jan 2025 23:01 GMT, 24.5 h14 Sep 2025 16:18 GMT, 108 min19 Oct 2025 19:32 GMT, 3 h10 Nov 2025 14:25 GMT, 26 min10 Nov 2025 16:00 GMT, 84 min12 Nov 2025 09:51 GMT, 5.6 h14 Nov 2025 09:38 GMT, 29.9 h22 Nov 2025 14:03 GMT, 86 min22 Nov 2025 17:08 GMT, 35 min29 Nov 2025 09:13 GMT, 90 min18 Dec 2025 16:10 GMT, 7.2 h18 Dec 2025 23:20 GMT, 3 min

Estimated spill volume by month, 2025

Hours spilling each month × the estimated spill rate for a works of this size. The bars are central estimates and the whiskers show the low–high range. Method.

025k50k75k100kJan 2025: 25 h spilling ≈ 23,497 m³ (range 9,359–58,989 m³)JanFeb 2025: 0.0 h spilling ≈ 0.0 m³ (range 0.0–0.0 m³)FebMar 2025: 0.0 h spilling ≈ 0.0 m³ (range 0.0–0.0 m³)MarApr 2025: 0.0 h spilling ≈ 0.0 m³ (range 0.0–0.0 m³)AprMay 2025: 0.0 h spilling ≈ 0.0 m³ (range 0.0–0.0 m³)MayJun 2025: 0.0 h spilling ≈ 0.0 m³ (range 0.0–0.0 m³)JunJul 2025: 0.0 h spilling ≈ 0.0 m³ (range 0.0–0.0 m³)JulAug 2025: 0.0 h spilling ≈ 0.0 m³ (range 0.0–0.0 m³)AugSep 2025: 1.8 h spilling ≈ 1,726 m³ (range 688–4,334 m³)SepOct 2025: 3.0 h spilling ≈ 2,877 m³ (range 1,146–7,223 m³)OctNov 2025: 41 h spilling ≈ 39,225 m³ (range 15,624–98,476 m³)NovDec 2025: 7.2 h spilling ≈ 6,905 m³ (range 2,750–17,336 m³)Dec
Cubic metres (m³), estimate. Hours are measured by the event duration monitor.

Longest single spills

Started (GMT)OverflowDurationEstimated volume
14 Nov 2025, 09:38Bromsgrove (Fringe Green) STW1.2 days11,422 – 71,991 m³
5 Jan 2025, 23:01Bromsgrove (Fringe Green) STW1.0 days9,346 – 58,909 m³
18 Dec 2025, 16:10Bromsgrove (Fringe Green) STW7.2 h2,731 – 17,215 m³
12 Nov 2025, 09:51Bromsgrove (Fringe Green) STW5.6 h2,146 – 13,523 m³
19 Oct 2025, 19:32Bromsgrove (Fringe Green) STW3.0 h1,140 – 7,183 m³

Estimated 2025 spill volume and pollution

Estimate, not a measurement. Monitors record how long an overflow spills, not how much. This calculator back-calculates a spill rate from the size of the works, using the Environment Agency's permit formulae, and multiplies it by published storm-sewage concentrations. How it works.

Volume, central estimate74,134 m³range 29,529 – 186,117 m³
In litres74.1 millionrange 29.5 million – 186.1 million L
Olympic swimming pools30at 2,500 m³ each
Organic load, as people's raw sewage111,202person-days of untreated BOD

Assumed spill rate while spilling: 106.1 – 668.8 L/s (central 266.4 L/s), from a dry-weather flow of 106.1 L/s.

Pollutant releasedLowCentralHighConcentration used (low / typical / high)
BOD₅ (organic load) 1,181 kg6,672 kg37,223 kg 40 / 90 / 200 mg/L
Low/high: Europe range, Ellis & Jenkins 2005; typical: UK, Ellis & Jenkins 2005 (both via botturi)
Suspended solids 3,101 kg31,507 kg134,191 kg 105 / 425 / 721 mg/L
Low/high: Europe range; typical: UK, Ellis & Jenkins 2005 (via botturi)
Ammonium-N 56 kg467 kg1,731 kg 1.9 / 6.3 / 9.3 mg/L
Low: Germany, Brombach 2005; typical/high: Paris range 3.3–9.3 midpoint and top, Gasperi 2012 (via botturi); no UK value found
Total phosphorus 35 kg193 kg1,005 kg 1.2 / 2.6 / 5.4 mg/L
Low/high: Paris, Gasperi 2012; typical: Slovakia (via botturi). UK figure of 10 mg/L treated as an outlier
E. coli 3.0 trillion organisms74.1 trillion organisms1.9 × 10¹⁵ organisms 10,000 / 100,000 / 1.0 million per 100 mL
Median range at CSO and retention-tank outlets, Stott et al. 2018 (via botturi); typical = log midpoint

Low combines the low spill rate with low concentrations, and high combines high with high, so the true figure is very likely inside the range. Long spills become more diluted as they go on, so the central figure tends to overstate the load of long events. The calculator does not estimate the effect on the receiving water, which depends on river flow or tide at the time of the spill.

Bromsgrove (Fringe Green) STW

Storm tank at sewage works · discharges to Tributary of River Salwarpe

Spills 2025
11 (77 hours) · down 66% on 2024
Spills 2024
32 (57 hours)
Long-term average
32.2 spills a year (monitored since 2021)
Monitor uptime
100% of the year
Investigation
UWWTR investigation completed, Operational investigation completed
Improvement
UWWTR improvement ongoing, Operational improvement completed
WFD catchment
Salwarpe - source to conf Elmbridge Bk (GB109054044200)
Outlet location
SO9590068350 (OS grid reference) · View on Apple Maps
EA ID / permit
SVT00375 · S/07/56027/R · company name: BROMSGROVE STW (SSTO)

How the estimate works

  1. Dry-weather flow (DWF) = population × water use per person × (1 + infiltration). Water use is 136.5 L per person per day, England's per-capita consumption for 2024–25 [EA]. Infiltration of groundwater into sewers is taken as 0–40% of that flow [Escritt, via HBF]. The Environment Agency defines DWF as PG + I + E [EA].
  2. Population. The size of each works comes from the load entering it as reported under the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive, in population equivalents (1 p.e. = 60 g of BOD a day) [UWWTD]. We treat population equivalent as population. That overstates flow where trade effluent adds load, and no official source links the two. Works serving fewer than 2,000 p.e. are not reported, so their size has to be entered by hand.
  3. Low spill rate = DWF. This is the method used by Giakoumis & Voulvoulis (2026), which they note likely underestimates storm loads [G&V].
  4. High spill rate = Formula A − flow to full treatment = (DWF + 1360P) − 3DWF. This is the largest flow the permit expects the storm tanks to handle before it passes on to treatment or overflows [EA]. The central rate is the geometric mean of the low and high rates.
  5. Volume = spill rate × hours spilling, with hours taken from the event duration monitor.
  6. Pollution = volume × published storm-sewage concentrations [Botturi et al.] [US EPA]. Organic load is also shown as person-days of untreated sewage at 60 g of BOD per person per day [UWWTD].

What this cannot tell you. It gives no real flow for any single spill, and no effect on the river or sea, which depends on the flow, tide and the other pressures on the water at the time. It gives no figure for spills from overflows on the sewer network, which serve catchments of unknown size. It is a way to put hours into rough physical terms, not a substitute for flow monitoring.

Sources

  1. EA: Water companies – environmental permits for storm overflows and emergency overflows
  2. EA: Water resources 2024 to 2025 – per capita consumption
  3. HBF: Foul sewer design – historic conventions (citing Escritt 1984 on infiltration)
  4. Giakoumis & Voulvoulis (2026), Environ. Sci.: Water Res. Technol., doi:10.1039/D5EW00860C
  5. Botturi et al. (2021), Crit. Rev. Environ. Sci. Technol. 51:1585 – CSO quality review, Table 2
  6. US EPA (2004) Report to Congress on CSOs and SSOs, chapter 4
  7. Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive, Article 2(6): 1 p.e. = 60 g BOD5/day
  8. Olympic-size swimming pool: 2,500 m³ at the nominal 2 m depth

← All Severn Trent Water works · Contains Environment Agency data licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Spill start and stop times: © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2026. All rights reserved. They are water-company data and have not been verified by the Environment Agency. Works size: EEA Waterbase UWWTD. How to read the data.