Outrage as 'non-stop' sewage dumped in Gloucestershire brook for 27 days

The UK's largest water utility company has faced criticism for dumping sewage into a Cotswolds river tributary for 27 days straight.

Raw sewage has been discharged into the Ampney Brook St Peter overflow in Cirencester for 27 days continuously.

The water company's monitor shows that it started discharging into Ampney Brook on 20 December and has not stopped since.

Singer and environmental campaigner Feargal Sharkey has publicly criticised Thames Water. He expressed "alarm" that sewage has been dumped in the Ampney St Peter overflow for "a grand total of 655 hours 20 mins non-stop".

Gloucestershire County Councillor Paul Hodgkinson added: “It’s totally outrageous, I know there has been an awful lot of rainfall recently, but water companies are only meant to be allowed to discharge sewage in exceptional circumstances.

“No reasonable person could say 27 days of discharge is responsible. It’s very worrying and it has to stop.

“Local councillors are limited with what they can do so the government needs to be firmer with water companies.”

In response, a Thames Water spokesperson said: “The sites will be discharging because the flows being received exceed their capacity.

“In these circumstances, the infrastructure is designed to discharge in this way, to prevent sewage backing up and flooding properties.

“We are the first company to provide these alerts for inland waters and this ‘near real-time’ data is available to customers as a map on our website.

"Our shareholders have recently approved a business plan that sees us spending an additional £2billion beyond what our customers are funding so we can improve outcomes for customers, leakage and river health.

"We’ve also committed to a 50% reduction in the total annual duration of spills across London and the Thames Valley by 2030, and within that an 80% reduction in sensitive catchments.”