Supporters will be well aware of the poor record that Thames Water, the catchment’s supplier of sewage services, has across its area of operations. Their record of untreated sewage spills into our rivers and chalkstreams, along with those of other companies across England has been documented historically for river groups by The Rivers Trust using EDM data published by water companies via the Environment Agency.
FORQ have been monitoring and raising awareness of the discharges from the catchment’s sewage treatment works for several years, but until now have only been able to discover the number of times, and for how long raw sewage has been discharged from each individual site. We have also been unable to drill down further into the data and find the exact circumstances of each untreated spill, despite the significant concerns we have had over the discharges, particularly those located at the headwaters of the Rib and Quin, at Therfield and Barkway.
FORQ were therefore extremely grateful when Peter Hammond of Windrush WASP kindly included Barkway STW in a FOI request for EDM data for the Barkway treatment works and analysed the data provided. He has subsequently been able to provide us with a draft report.
In the general summary, Peter says:
“WASP submitted an EIR (Environmental Information Regulation) request to Thames Water for both treated and untreated sewage discharge data for Barkway STW.
WASP’s analysis shows that between January 2019 and March 2024 Barkway STW has breached its permit on at least 96 days, by discharging untreated sewage while not treating sewage to its capacity. Such breaches of an Environment Agency (EA) permit are illegal .
| Untreated Sewage Discharges | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 (to 31/3) |
| Total hours (EA/TW) | 175 | 548 | 734 | 145 | 627 | 881 |
| Number (EA except 2024/WASP) | 17 | 43 | 40 | 20 | 44 | 42 |
| Illegal discharge days | 8 | 15 | 35 | 9 | 16 | 13 |
Clearly, Barkway STW does not always cope with its current loading, even in dry years (2022) but especially in wet years (2023 and so far in 2024) without discharging untreated sewage in breach of its permit. Any new housing development will add further loading to the works and increase the likelihood of such discharges. Therefore, planning consent for more houses to be connected to Barkway STW is likely to result in even more unlawful discharges unless the works capacity and performance is significantly improved.”
Following widespread public outrage and investigative work conducted by Peter and others and presented in programmes such as the BBC’s Panorama into the possible illegality of some sewage spills, the Environment Agency and OfWat announced a national investigation into potential breaches of permit conditions at wastewater treatment works by water and sewerage companies. We will be writing to the Environment Agency (copying Barkway Parish Council who are concerned with the current spillage situation) to raise the issues uncovered at Barkway STW and which may well have been replicated at some other sites across the catchment.
We remain deeply concerned at the ability of the catchments’ sewerage infrastructure to perform. We also continue to question how planning authorities and councils can accept the word of water companies in relation to planning applications and developments where their infrastructure is so woefully inadequate and seemingly so clearly unable to operate within legal permit conditions to meet current demand.
If you would like further information on the Windrush WASP report into spillages at Barkway, please contact us by email.
Friends of the Rib and Quin 