Storm overflow register · Severn Trent Water

South Normanton sewage works: storm overflow spills 2025

South Normanton sewage treatment works, run by Severn Trent Water, has 1 monitored storm overflow discharging to Normanton Brook. In 2025 it recorded 53 spills totalling 949 hours, against 37 spills and 393 hours in 2024. By hours spilling, it ranks 28 of 435 Severn Trent Water works, where 1 spilled longest.

Works size: 7,207 population equivalent (SOUTH NORMANTON 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.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecSouth Normanton STW1 Jan 2025 06:17 GMT, 15.2 h5 Jan 2025 13:17 GMT, 56.2 h7 Jan 2025 21:45 GMT, 16 min27 Jan 2025 04:01 GMT, 7.4 h27 Jan 2025 11:46 GMT, 39 min27 Jan 2025 12:31 GMT, 2.4 h27 Jan 2025 15:02 GMT, 24 min27 Jan 2025 17:29 GMT, 1 min27 Jan 2025 21:06 GMT, 4.4 h28 Jan 2025 02:29 GMT, 2 min28 Jan 2025 03:47 GMT, 69 min28 Jan 2025 05:01 GMT, 25 min28 Jan 2025 07:10 GMT, 5.3 h28 Jan 2025 12:47 GMT, 23 min28 Jan 2025 13:19 GMT, 24 min28 Jan 2025 14:11 GMT, 6 min28 Jan 2025 14:34 GMT, 21 min28 Jan 2025 16:35 GMT, 21 min28 Jan 2025 17:24 GMT, 11 min28 Jan 2025 18:05 GMT, 21 min28 Jan 2025 18:59 GMT, 1 min28 Jan 2025 19:40 GMT, 10 min28 Jan 2025 20:29 GMT, 2 min17 Sep 2025 07:35 GMT, 12.8 h20 Sep 2025 22:38 GMT, 7 h19 Oct 2025 22:12 GMT, 10.5 h4 Nov 2025 21:21 GMT, 13.5 h10 Nov 2025 15:16 GMT, 14.4 h12 Nov 2025 00:49 GMT, 29.6 h14 Nov 2025 07:45 GMT, 123.3 h19 Nov 2025 16:19 GMT, 13 h23 Nov 2025 06:01 GMT, 47 h29 Nov 2025 04:28 GMT, 581.3 h

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.

050k100k150k200kJan 2025: 96 h spilling ≈ 11,880 m³ (range 4,732–29,824 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: 20 h spilling ≈ 2,445 m³ (range 974–6,138 m³)SepOct 2025: 11 h spilling ≈ 1,297 m³ (range 516–3,255 m³)OctNov 2025: 284 h spilling ≈ 35,095 m³ (range 13,979–88,108 m³)NovDec 2025: 538 h spilling ≈ 66,412 m³ (range 26,453–166,729 m³)Dec
Cubic metres (m³), estimate. Hours are measured by the event duration monitor.

Longest single spills

Started (GMT)OverflowDurationEstimated volume
29 Nov 2025, 04:28South Normanton STW24.2 days28,594 – 180,220 m³
14 Nov 2025, 07:45South Normanton STW5.1 days6,063 – 38,215 m³
5 Jan 2025, 13:17South Normanton STW2.3 days2,765 – 17,428 m³
23 Nov 2025, 06:01South Normanton STW2.0 days2,313 – 14,576 m³
12 Nov 2025, 00:49South Normanton STW1.2 days1,453 – 9,161 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 estimate117,128 m³range 46,655 – 294,055 m³
In litres117.1 millionrange 46.7 million – 294.1 million L
Olympic swimming pools47at 2,500 m³ each
Organic load, as people's raw sewage175,692person-days of untreated BOD

Assumed spill rate while spilling: 13.7 – 86.1 L/s (central 34.3 L/s), from a dry-weather flow of 13.7 L/s.

Pollutant releasedLowCentralHighConcentration used (low / typical / high)
BOD₅ (organic load) 1,866 kg10,542 kg58,811 kg 40 / 90 / 200 mg/L
Low/high: Europe range, Ellis & Jenkins 2005; typical: UK, Ellis & Jenkins 2005 (both via botturi)
Suspended solids 4,899 kg49,779 kg212,014 kg 105 / 425 / 721 mg/L
Low/high: Europe range; typical: UK, Ellis & Jenkins 2005 (via botturi)
Ammonium-N 89 kg738 kg2,735 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 56 kg305 kg1,588 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 4.7 trillion organisms117.1 trillion organisms2.9 × 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.

South Normanton STW

Storm tank at sewage works · discharges to Normanton Brook

Spills 2025
53 (948 hours) · up 43% on 2024
Spills 2024
37 (393 hours)
Long-term average
38.6 spills a year (monitored since 2021)
Monitor uptime
98% of the year
High-spill reason (company)
Not asset maintenance - Hydraulic capacity
Investigation
Env Act (SODRP) investigation ongoing, UWWTR investigation completed, Operational investigation completed
Improvement
Operational improvement completed
WFD catchment
Alfreton Brook from Source to Westwood Brook (GB104028052350)
Outlet location
SK4485957679 (OS grid reference) · View on Apple Maps
EA ID / permit
SVT02109 · T/41/46401/R · company name: SOUTH NORMANTON STW 3DWF (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.