Storm overflow register · Severn Trent Water

Stoke Prior sewage works: storm overflow spills 2025

Stoke Prior sewage treatment works, run by Severn Trent Water, has 1 monitored storm overflow discharging to Hen Brook. In 2025 it recorded 3 spills totalling 0.5 hours, against 29 spills and 551 hours in 2024. By hours spilling, it ranks 401 of 435 Severn Trent Water works, where 1 spilled longest.

Works size: 3,702 population equivalent (STOKE PRIOR 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.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecStoke Prior STW22 Apr 2025 12:24 GMT, 4 min22 Apr 2025 12:31 GMT, 3 min22 Apr 2025 22:46 GMT, 8 min22 Apr 2025 23:15 GMT, 5 min23 Apr 2025 01:01 GMT, 3 min5 Jun 2025 17:25 GMT, 4 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.

020406080Jan 2025: 0.0 h spilling ≈ 0.0 m³ (range 0.0–0.0 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: 0.4 h spilling ≈ 25 m³ (range 10–64 m³)AprMay 2025: 0.0 h spilling ≈ 0.0 m³ (range 0.0–0.0 m³)MayJun 2025: 0.1 h spilling ≈ 6.3 m³ (range 2.5–16 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: 0.0 h spilling ≈ 0.0 m³ (range 0.0–0.0 m³)SepOct 2025: 0.0 h spilling ≈ 0.0 m³ (range 0.0–0.0 m³)OctNov 2025: 0.0 h spilling ≈ 0.0 m³ (range 0.0–0.0 m³)NovDec 2025: 0.0 h spilling ≈ 0.0 m³ (range 0.0–0.0 m³)Dec
Cubic metres (m³), estimate. Hours are measured by the event duration monitor.

Longest single spills

Started (GMT)OverflowDurationEstimated volume
22 Apr 2025, 22:46Stoke Prior STW0.1 h3.4 – 21 m³
22 Apr 2025, 23:15Stoke Prior STW0.1 h2.1 – 13 m³
5 Jun 2025, 17:25Stoke Prior STW0.1 h1.7 – 11 m³
22 Apr 2025, 12:24Stoke Prior STW0.1 h1.7 – 11 m³
23 Apr 2025, 01:01Stoke Prior STW0.1 h1.3 – 8.0 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 estimate32 m³range 13 – 80 m³
In litres31,716range 12,633 – 79,624 L
Olympic swimming pools0.0at 2,500 m³ each
Organic load, as people's raw sewage48person-days of untreated BOD

Assumed spill rate while spilling: 7.0 – 44.2 L/s (central 17.6 L/s), from a dry-weather flow of 7.0 L/s.

Pollutant releasedLowCentralHighConcentration used (low / typical / high)
BOD₅ (organic load) 0.5 kg2.9 kg16 kg 40 / 90 / 200 mg/L
Low/high: Europe range, Ellis & Jenkins 2005; typical: UK, Ellis & Jenkins 2005 (both via botturi)
Suspended solids 1.3 kg13 kg57 kg 105 / 425 / 721 mg/L
Low/high: Europe range; typical: UK, Ellis & Jenkins 2005 (via botturi)
Ammonium-N 0.0 kg0.2 kg0.7 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 0.0 kg0.1 kg0.4 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 1.3 billion organisms31.7 billion organisms796.2 billion 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.

Stoke Prior STW

Storm tank at sewage works · discharges to Hen Brook

Spills 2025
3 (0.5 hours) · down 90% on 2024
Spills 2024
29 (551 hours)
Long-term average
19.5 spills a year (monitored since 2020)
Monitor uptime
98% of the year
Investigation
UWWTR investigation ongoing, Operational investigation completed
Improvement
Operational improvement completed
WFD catchment
Salwarpe - source to conf Elmbridge Bk (GB109054044200)
Outlet location
SO9361066620 (OS grid reference) · View on Apple Maps
EA ID / permit
SVT02203 · S/07/56078/R · company name: STOKE PRIOR 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.