Sewage has been discharging into three of West Berkshire’s rivers for more than 400 hours since the beginning of 2025.
Thames Water says the storm overflow is currently – at the time of writing last night (Wednesday) – discharging into the River Lambourne at East Shefford, and that there is a risk of sewage in the watercourse.
Sewagemap shows spills in West Berkshire
Thames Water’s discharge map says it has been going since January 10, and for more than 135 hours.
Monitors show that 261 hours and 15 minutes of storm overflow has been running into the Winterbourne stream at Winterbourne since January 4.
And the one in Compton has been going for 18 hours into the River Pang.
The latest overflows come as Olivia Bailey, MP for Reading West and Mid Berkshire, yesterday (Wednesday) in Parliament called on Thames Water to listen to local campaigners and take action to remove phosphates from the outflows at sewage works along the River Pang.
Responding to the debate, the environment minister Emma Hardy said that she was “happy to support [Olivia’s] work in pushing Thames Water to tackle phosphate pollution”.
Thames Water’s real time map shows overflows on January 15
In a debate on protecting the water quality of our rivers, lakes and seas, she spoke about the need to protect the unique ecology of West Berkshire’s chalk streams, of which it is estimated that there are only 200 globally.
However, according to Environment Agency data, the Pang’s ecological status has gone from being rated as ‘good’ as recently as 2016, to ‘moderate’ in 2019, and is now rated as ‘poor’.
“I am proud that we have two precious chalk streams, the Pang and the Kennet, flowing through Reading West and Mid Berkshire constituency.
“Last year, I tested the Pang with local campaigners from the Angling Trust and found phosphate levels three times the level they should be, resulting in an increase in algae, depleted oxygen and significant damage to wildlife, plants and fish,” said Ms Bailey.
Thames Water has so far refused to include phosphate stripping in its plans for the sewage works along the course of the Pang.
“We need urgent action to ensure that the ecological status of our chalk streams is restored, and I call upon Thames Water to listen to the campaigners and citizen scientists who have committed so much of their time to understanding the Pang,” she added.
“I am therefore really pleased that the minister said that she would be happy to support action to push Thames Water to tackle phosphate pollution and I’m looking forward to working with the Government to clean up the Pang.”