Online Reporter
LONDON. — Sewage spills in England fell by more than a third last year as unusually dry weather curbed storm overflows.
But the country’s water industry remains far short of its pollution targets.
England’s storm overflows spilled 291,492 times in 2025, 35% less than in the previous year, according to Environment Agency data.
The total spill duration was nearly 1.9 million hours compared with 3.6 million hours in 2024.
“It is good to see that storm overflow spills are down since the previous year, but there is still an unacceptable amount of sewage entering our waterways and a long way to go in cleaning up our rivers, lakes and seas,” Water Minister Emma Hardy said in a statement.
The government has set a target to cut pollution by 50% by 2030 but the Environment Agency said that last year’s reduction was largely due to drought, rather than significant improvements to asset health. Heavy rain this year is pushing up spills again, it said.
Rainwater and sewage share the same pipes in Britain.
Storm overflows act as relief valves if the system is at risk of being overwhelmed, spilling effluent into watercourses.
That can kill fish and sicken people and animals who swim in the water.
“While the dry weather in 2025 will have led to fewer spills, we are also starting to see the effect of a tripling of water company investment,” a spokesperson for industry body Water UK said in an email. “By building bigger storm tanks and expanding capacity at sewage treatment works, we will halve spills over the next five years.”
The data doesn’t show how many spills were illegally made on dry days, with water company permits only allowing them to discharge sewage when it’s raining.
The campaign group Surfers Against Sewage said its analysis showed water companies discharged sewage on dry days for over 187,241 hours in 2025, including 7,885 hours into designated bathing waters.
The group said it recorded 20 cases of sickness reported by water users linked to confirmed dry-day sewage discharges.
The group said sewage spills appear to be worse this year due to the wetter weather.
It found water companies have already discharged sewage for 69,330 hours into England’s bathing waters, more than half of last year’s total. —Bloomberg
Mathew Masinge