Storm overflow register · United Utilities

Chapel En Le Frith sewage works: storm overflow spills 2025

Chapel En Le Frith sewage treatment works, run by United Utilities, has 1 monitored storm overflow discharging to Black Brook. In 2025 it recorded 107 spills totalling 1,347 hours, against 129 spills and 1,154 hours in 2024. By hours spilling, it ranks 28 of 289 United Utilities works, where 1 spilled longest.

Works size: 7,328 population equivalent (CHAPEL-EN-LE-FRITH 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.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecChapel-En-Le-Frith…178 spills, 61.5 h, 1 Jan to 4 Jan303 spills, 77.5 h, 5 Jan to 9 Jan12 Jan 2025 15:57 GMT, 2.3 h17 spills, 48.1 h, 13 Jan to 15 Jan476 spills, 140 h, 23 Jan to 1 Feb15 spills, 5 h, 23 Feb to 24 Feb7 spills, 9.9 h, 26 Feb to 27 Feb12 spills, 1 h, 26 May to 27 May13 spills, 4.1 h, 28 May to 28 May4 spills, 1.1 h, 29 May to 29 May15 spills, 1.4 h, 3 Jun to 3 Jun27 spills, 6.5 h, 5 Jun to 5 Jun13 Jun 2025 20:10 GMT, 4.1 h2 spills, 1 h, 22 Jul to 22 Jul14 spills, 1.2 h, 4 Aug to 5 Aug27 spills, 2.3 h, 4 Sep to 4 Sep12 spills, 0.9 h, 7 Sep to 7 Sep253 spills, 20.8 h, 15 Sep to 17 Sep95 spills, 18.1 h, 20 Sep to 21 Sep15 spills, 1.6 h, 28 Sep to 28 Sep2 spills, 4.2 h, 29 Sep to 29 Sep325 spills, 33.2 h, 2 Oct to 5 Oct41 spills, 16.8 h, 19 Oct to 20 Oct26 spills, 50.8 h, 21 Oct to 25 Oct77 spills, 67.9 h, 26 Oct to 1 Nov3 spills, 1.4 h, 3 Nov to 3 Nov4 spills, 16.4 h, 4 Nov to 5 Nov252 spills, 117 h, 11 Nov to 17 Nov137 spills, 44.6 h, 18 Nov to 20 Nov76 spills, 76.5 h, 22 Nov to 25 Nov1629 spills, 514.2 h, 28 Nov to 24 Dec

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.

050k100k150kJan 2025: 327 h spilling ≈ 41,033 m³ (range 16,344-103,016 m³)JanFeb 2025: 18 h spilling ≈ 2,197 m³ (range 875-5,516 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: 6.2 h spilling ≈ 778 m³ (range 310-1,954 m³)MayJun 2025: 12 h spilling ≈ 1,507 m³ (range 600-3,783 m³)JunJul 2025: 1.0 h spilling ≈ 126 m³ (range 50-315 m³)JulAug 2025: 1.2 h spilling ≈ 151 m³ (range 60-378 m³)AugSep 2025: 48 h spilling ≈ 6,002 m³ (range 2,391-15,068 m³)SepOct 2025: 166 h spilling ≈ 20,793 m³ (range 8,282-52,201 m³)OctNov 2025: 309 h spilling ≈ 38,736 m³ (range 15,429-97,247 m³)NovDec 2025: 465 h spilling ≈ 58,336 m³ (range 23,236-146,454 m³)Dec
Cubic metres (m³), estimate. Hours are measured by the event duration monitor.

Longest single spills

Started (GMT)OverflowDurationEstimated volume
15 Nov 2025, 16:08Chapel-En-Le-Frith WwTW1.6 days1,893 - 11,931 m³
20 Dec 2025, 09:58Chapel-En-Le-Frith WwTW1.5 days1,779 - 11,212 m³
22 Dec 2025, 18:34Chapel-En-Le-Frith WwTW1.4 days1,671 - 10,534 m³
13 Jan 2025, 13:24Chapel-En-Le-Frith WwTW1.1 days1,291 - 8,138 m³
24 Nov 2025, 10:32Chapel-En-Le-Frith WwTW1.0 days1,243 - 7,833 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 estimate169,143 m³range 67,373 - 424,641 m³
In litres169.1 millionrange 67.4 million - 424.6 million L
Olympic swimming pools68at 2,500 m³ each
Organic load, as people's raw sewage253,715person-days of untreated BOD

Assumed spill rate while spilling: 13.9 - 87.6 L/s (central 34.9 L/s), from a dry-weather flow of 13.9 L/s.

Pollutant releasedLowCentralHighConcentration used (low / typical / high)
BOD₅ (organic load) 2,695 kg15,223 kg84,928 kg 40 / 90 / 200 mg/L
Low/high: Europe range, Ellis & Jenkins 2005; typical: UK, Ellis & Jenkins 2005 (both via botturi)
Suspended solids 7,074 kg71,886 kg306,166 kg 105 / 425 / 721 mg/L
Low/high: Europe range; typical: UK, Ellis & Jenkins 2005 (via botturi)
Ammonium-N 128 kg1,066 kg3,949 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 81 kg440 kg2,293 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 6.7 trillion organisms169.1 trillion organisms4.2 × 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.

Chapel-En-Le-Frith WwTW

Storm tank at sewage works · discharges to Black Brook

Spills 2025
107 (1,347 hours) · down 17% on 2024
Spills 2024
129 (1,154 hours)
Long-term average
134.4 spills a year (monitored since 2018)
Monitor uptime
100% of the year
High-spill reason (company)
Performance - Asset configuration (e.g. PS/rising main/storm tanks)
Investigation
No investigation activity in reporting period
Improvement
Env Act (SODRP) improvement ongoing
WFD catchment
Black Brook (Upper Mersey) (GB112069060910)
Outlet location
SK0481082020 (OS grid reference) · View on Apple Maps
EA ID / permit
UUP00447 · 016940168 · company name: CHAPEL-EN-LE-FRITH WwTW

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 United Utilities 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.