Storm overflow register · United Utilities

Tbc sewage works: storm overflow spills 2025

Tbc sewage treatment works, run by United Utilities, has 7 monitored storm overflows discharging to Trib of River Gowy, Cowside and Stainforth Beck, River Croco, Skirden Beck, River Mersey, Trib Pow Maughan Beck, Trib Trout Beck. In 2025 they recorded 272 spills totalling 1,097 hours, against 227 spills and 601 hours in 2024. By hours spilling, it ranks 38 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.

Hours spilling by month, 2025

Hours, measured by the event duration monitor.

Longest single spills

Started (GMT)	Overflow	Duration
7 Jan 2025, 10:54	Tbc	1.8 days
22 Aug 2025, 20:06	Tbc	1.8 days
15 Sep 2025, 13:20	Tbc	1.8 days
6 Dec 2025, 05:42	Tbc	1.6 days
15 Sep 2025, 02:12	Tbc	1.5 days

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 estimate18,800 m³range 7,488 – 47,198 m³

In litres18.8 millionrange 7.5 million – 47.2 million L

Olympic swimming pools7.5at 2,500 m³ each

Organic load, as people's raw sewage28,200person-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 released	Low	Central	High	Concentration used (low / typical / high)
BOD₅ (organic load)	300 kg	1,692 kg	9,440 kg	40 / 90 / 200 mg/L Low/high: Europe range, Ellis & Jenkins 2005; typical: UK, Ellis & Jenkins 2005 (both via botturi)
Suspended solids	786 kg	7,990 kg	34,030 kg	105 / 425 / 721 mg/L Low/high: Europe range; typical: UK, Ellis & Jenkins 2005 (via botturi)
Ammonium-N	14 kg	118 kg	439 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	9.0 kg	49 kg	255 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	748.8 billion organisms	18.8 trillion organisms	472.0 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.

Tbc

Inlet overflow at sewage works · discharges to Trib of River Gowy

Spills 2025: 62 (377 hours)
Spills 2024: – (– hours)
Monitor uptime: 100% of the year
High-spill reason (company): Not asset maintenance - Hydraulic capacity
Investigation: No investigation activity in reporting period
Improvement: No improvement action in reporting period
WFD catchment: Gowy and tribs (Source to Milton Brook) (GB112068060280)
Outlet location: SJ5933158729 (OS grid reference) · View on Apple Maps
EA ID / permit: UUP02288 · Unpermitted · company name: Calverley WwTW SO

Tbc

Inlet overflow at sewage works · discharges to Cowside and Stainforth Beck

Spills 2025: 73 (291 hours) · up 46% on 2024
Spills 2024: 50 (184 hours)
Long-term average: 61.5 spills a year (monitored since 2024)
Monitor uptime: 97% 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: No improvement action in reporting period
WFD catchment: Cowside and Stainforth Beck (GB112071065690)
Outlet location: SD3819946710 (OS grid reference) · View on Apple Maps
EA ID / permit: UUP02240 · Unpermitted · company name: Stainforth WwTW

Tbc

Inlet overflow at sewage works · discharges to River Croco

Spills 2025: 54 (137 hours) · up 125% on 2024
Spills 2024: 24 (23 hours)
Long-term average: 39.0 spills a year (monitored since 2024)
Monitor uptime: 100% of the year
High-spill reason (company): Not asset maintenance - Hydraulic capacity
Investigation: No investigation activity in reporting period
Improvement: No improvement action in reporting period
WFD catchment: Croco (GB112068055460)
Outlet location: SJ7325066580 (OS grid reference) · View on Apple Maps
EA ID / permit: UUP02277 · Unpermitted · company name: Sproston WWTW

Tbc

Inlet overflow at sewage works · discharges to Skirden Beck

Spills 2025: 25 (130 hours) · up from 0 on 2024
Spills 2024: 0 (0.0 hours)
Long-term average: 12.5 spills a year (monitored since 2024)
Monitor uptime: 95% of the year
Investigation: No investigation activity in reporting period
Improvement: No improvement action in reporting period
WFD catchment: Skirden Beck (GB112071065570)
Outlet location: SD7840049300 (OS grid reference) · View on Apple Maps
EA ID / permit: UUP02199 · Unpermitted · company name: Bolton by Bowland

Tbc

Inlet overflow at sewage works · discharges to River Mersey

Spills 2025: 38 (106 hours) · up from 0 on 2024
Spills 2024: 0 (0.0 hours)
Long-term average: 19.0 spills a year (monitored since 2024)
Monitor uptime: 99% of the year
High-spill reason (company): Not asset maintenance - Hydraulic capacity
Investigation: No investigation activity in reporting period
Improvement: No improvement action in reporting period
WFD catchment: Mersey (upstream of Manchester Ship Canal) (GB112069061030)
Outlet location: SJ8644089690 (OS grid reference) · View on Apple Maps
EA ID / permit: UUP02241 · Permit applied for · company name: Stockport WwTW Heaton's Sewer CSO (STOCK)

Tbc

Inlet overflow at sewage works · discharges to Trib Pow Maughan Beck

Spills 2025: 6 (49 hours) · down 96% on 2024
Spills 2024: 134 (383 hours)
Long-term average: 6.0 spills a year (monitored since 2024)
Monitor uptime: 100% of the year
Investigation: No investigation activity in reporting period
Improvement: No improvement action in reporting period
WFD catchment: Pow Maughan Beck (GB102076073910)
Outlet location: NY4620051100 (OS grid reference) · View on Apple Maps
EA ID / permit: UUP02275 · Unpermitted · company name: Cocklakes WwTW

Tbc

Inlet overflow at sewage works · discharges to Trib Trout Beck

Spills 2025: 14 (6.8 hours) · down 26% on 2024
Spills 2024: 19 (11 hours)
Long-term average: 16.5 spills a year (monitored since 2024)
Monitor uptime: 98% of the year
Investigation: No investigation activity in reporting period
Improvement: No improvement action in reporting period
WFD catchment: Trout Beck (Cairn Beck) (GB102076073900)
Outlet location: NY5077055350 (OS grid reference) · View on Apple Maps
EA ID / permit: UUP02276 · Unpermitted · company name: Faugh WwTW

How the estimate works

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].
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.
Low spill rate = DWF. This is the method used by Giakoumis & Voulvoulis (2026), which they note likely underestimates storm loads [G&V].
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.
Volume = spill rate × hours spilling, with hours taken from the event duration monitor.
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

← 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.