Storm overflow register · United Utilities

Strines sewage works: storm overflow spills 2025

Strines sewage treatment works, run by United Utilities, has 2 monitored storm overflows discharging to River Goyt. In 2025 they recorded 65 spills totalling 376 hours, against 104 spills and 1,051 hours in 2024. By hours spilling, it ranks 130 of 289 United Utilities 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.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecStrines WwTW18 spills, 54.8 h, 1 Jan to 4 Jan24 spills, 77.5 h, 5 Jan to 9 Jan3 spills, 2.8 h, 13 Jan to 13 Jan2 spills, 5.3 h, 20 Jan to 21 Jan5 spills, 14.3 h, 23 Jan to 25 Jan6 spills, 19.8 h, 26 Jan to 27 Jan20 Feb 2025 15:00 GMT, 30 min23 Feb 2025 21:15 GMT, 45 min26 Feb 2025 20:45 GMT, 2 h7 Mar 2025 05:45 GMT, 45 min2 spills, 0.5 h, 26 May to 26 May2 spills, 2 h, 28 May to 28 May3 Jun 2025 07:50 GMT, 20 min4 spills, 2.8 h, 5 Jun to 5 Jun22 Jun 2025 19:34 GMT, 76 min6 Jul 2025 05:38 GMT, 68 min19 Jul 2025 11:58 GMT, 44 min20 Jul 2025 19:34 GMT, 60 min21 Jul 2025 18:04 GMT, 30 min4 Aug 2025 12:32 GMT, 24 min7 Sep 2025 13:06 GMT, 36 min11 Sep 2025 15:24 GMT, 22 min4 spills, 1.8 h, 15 Sep to 16 Sep2 spills, 5.3 h, 17 Sep to 17 Sep5 spills, 16.3 h, 20 Sep to 21 Sep2 spills, 2.4 h, 27 Sep to 28 Sep15 spills, 14.1 h, 2 Oct to 4 Oct2 spills, 2.8 h, 19 Oct to 19 Oct21 Oct 2025 17:28 GMT, 10 min4 spills, 0.8 h, 27 Oct to 27 Oct4 Nov 2025 19:42 GMT, 62 min11 spills, 7.3 h, 11 Nov to 12 Nov3 spills, 10.4 h, 14 Nov to 15 Nov7 spills, 4.2 h, 18 Nov to 18 Nov2 spills, 0.6 h, 22 Nov to 22 Nov2 spills, 5.7 h, 23 Nov to 23 Nov6 spills, 13.1 h, 29 Nov to 29 Nov10 spills, 9 h, 1 Dec to 2 Dec9 spills, 5.6 h, 4 Dec to 4 Dec18 spills, 8.8 h, 5 Dec to 6 Dec20 spills, 23.6 h, 8 Dec to 10 Dec7 spills, 2.4 h, 12 Dec to 12 Dec20 spills, 27.1 h, 15 Dec to 16 Dec31 spills, 23.2 h, 17 Dec to 19 DecStrines WwTW

Hours spilling by month, 2025

050100150200Jan 2025: 174 hours spillingJanFeb 2025: 3.2 hours spillingFebMar 2025: 0.8 hours spillingMarApr 2025: 0.0 hours spillingAprMay 2025: 2.4 hours spillingMayJun 2025: 4.4 hours spillingJunJul 2025: 3.4 hours spillingJulAug 2025: 0.4 hours spillingAugSep 2025: 27 hours spillingSepOct 2025: 18 hours spillingOctNov 2025: 42 hours spillingNovDec 2025: 100 hours spillingDec
Hours, measured by the event duration monitor.

Longest single spills

Started (GMT)OverflowDuration
5 Jan 2025, 09:45Strines WwTW2.6 days
1 Jan 2025, 00:00Strines WwTW1.9 days
15 Dec 2025, 03:26Strines WwTW23.3 h
9 Dec 2025, 03:10Strines WwTW17.9 h
26 Jan 2025, 23:45Strines WwTW15.8 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 estimate6,436 m³range 2,563 - 16,157 m³
In litres6.4 millionrange 2.6 million - 16.2 million L
Olympic swimming pools2.6at 2,500 m³ each
Organic load, as people's raw sewage9,654person-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) 103 kg579 kg3,231 kg 40 / 90 / 200 mg/L
Low/high: Europe range, Ellis & Jenkins 2005; typical: UK, Ellis & Jenkins 2005 (both via botturi)
Suspended solids 269 kg2,735 kg11,649 kg 105 / 425 / 721 mg/L
Low/high: Europe range; typical: UK, Ellis & Jenkins 2005 (via botturi)
Ammonium-N 4.9 kg41 kg150 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 3.1 kg17 kg87 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 256.3 billion organisms6.4 trillion organisms161.6 trillion 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.

Strines WwTW

Storm tank at sewage works · discharges to River Goyt

Spills 2025
65 (376 hours) · down 38% on 2024
Spills 2024
104 (1,051 hours)
Long-term average
112.7 spills a year (monitored since 2020)
Monitor uptime
99% of the year
High-spill reason (company)
Not asset maintenance - Hydraulic capacity
Investigation
No investigation activity in reporting period
Improvement
Env Act (SODRP) improvement ongoing
WFD catchment
Goyt (Sett to Etherow) (GB112069060960)
Outlet location
SJ9701187101 (OS grid reference) · View on Apple Maps
EA ID / permit
UUP01885 · 016940182 · company name: STRINES WwTW

Strines WwTW

Inlet overflow at sewage works · discharges to River Goyt

Spills 2025
0 (0.0 hours) · no change on 2024
Spills 2024
0 (0.0 hours)
Long-term average
9.2 spills a year (monitored since 2020)
Monitor uptime
100% of the year
Investigation
No investigation activity in reporting period
Improvement
Env Act (SODRP) improvement ongoing
WFD catchment
Goyt (Sett to Etherow) (GB112069060960)
Outlet location
SJ9701187101 (OS grid reference) · View on Apple Maps
EA ID / permit
UUP01886 · 016940182 · company name: STRINES 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.