Storm overflow register · South West Water

Goodleigh sewage works: storm overflow spills 2025

Goodleigh sewage treatment works, run by South West Water, has 1 monitored storm overflow discharging to Goodleigh Stream. In 2025 it recorded 8 spills totalling 2.0 hours, against 8 spills and 2.5 hours in 2024. By hours spilling, it ranks 315 of 334 South West Water works, where 1 spilled longest.

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.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecGoodleigh WwTW5 Jan 2025 20:38 GMT, 11 min12 Jun 2025 10:44 GMT, 40 min3 Sep 2025 10:16 GMT, 10 min4 Sep 2025 03:12 GMT, 12 min8 Sep 2025 13:49 GMT, 11 min11 Sep 2025 06:40 GMT, 12 min11 Nov 2025 14:46 GMT, 3 min11 Nov 2025 14:50 GMT, 11 min12 Nov 2025 05:13 GMT, 13 min

Hours spilling by month, 2025

00.20.40.60.8Jan 2025: 0.2 hours spillingJanFeb 2025: 0.0 hours spillingFebMar 2025: 0.0 hours spillingMarApr 2025: 0.0 hours spillingAprMay 2025: 0.0 hours spillingMayJun 2025: 0.7 hours spillingJunJul 2025: 0.0 hours spillingJulAug 2025: 0.0 hours spillingAugSep 2025: 0.8 hours spillingSepOct 2025: 0.0 hours spillingOctNov 2025: 0.5 hours spillingNovDec 2025: 0.0 hours spillingDec
Hours, measured by the event duration monitor.

Longest single spills

Started (GMT)OverflowDuration
12 Jun 2025, 10:44Goodleigh WwTW0.7 h
12 Nov 2025, 05:13Goodleigh WwTW0.2 h
11 Sep 2025, 06:40Goodleigh WwTW0.2 h
4 Sep 2025, 03:12Goodleigh WwTW0.2 h
11 Nov 2025, 14:50Goodleigh WwTW0.2 h

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.

This works serves fewer than 2,000 people, or was not matched to a UWWTD report, so its size is not published. The population equivalent above is a placeholder of 1,000. Enter the population served if you know it.

Volume, central estimate34 m³range 14 – 86 m³
In litres34,269range 13,650 – 86,033 L
Olympic swimming pools0.0at 2,500 m³ each
Organic load, as people's raw sewage51person-days of untreated BOD

Assumed spill rate while spilling: 1.9 – 11.9 L/s (central 4.8 L/s), from a dry-weather flow of 1.9 L/s.

Pollutant releasedLowCentralHighConcentration used (low / typical / high)
BOD₅ (organic load) 0.5 kg3.1 kg17 kg 40 / 90 / 200 mg/L
Low/high: Europe range, Ellis & Jenkins 2005; typical: UK, Ellis & Jenkins 2005 (both via botturi)
Suspended solids 1.4 kg15 kg62 kg 105 / 425 / 721 mg/L
Low/high: Europe range; typical: UK, Ellis & Jenkins 2005 (via botturi)
Ammonium-N 0.0 kg0.2 kg0.8 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 kg0.5 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 1.4 billion organisms34.3 billion organisms860.3 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.

Goodleigh WwTW

Inlet overflow at sewage works · discharges to Goodleigh Stream

Spills 2025
8 (2.0 hours) · no change on 2024
Spills 2024
8 (2.5 hours)
Long-term average
14.1 spills a year (monitored since 2017)
Monitor uptime
100% of the year
Investigation
No investigation activity in reporting period
Improvement
No improvement action in reporting period
WFD catchment
Coney Gut (GB108050019980)
Outlet location
SS59823394 (OS grid reference) · View on Apple Maps
EA ID / permit
SBB00498 · 200356 · company name: GOODLEIGH STW_SO_GOODLEIGH

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 South West 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.