Severn Trent has been fined more than £2m for polluting the River Trent near Stoke, with the Environment Agency calling its storm contingency plans “woefully inadequate”.

Huge amounts of raw sewage were discharged into the river from Strongford wastewater treatment works near Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, between November 2019 and February 2020.

District judge Kevin Grego ruled at Cannock magistrates court on Monday that there was a failure by the water supplier to have in place and implement a proper system of contingency planning.

Pollution from an outfall pipe discharging untreated sewage into a tributary of the Gwendraeth Fawr, Trimsaran, Carmarthenshire, Wales

Severn Trent had previously pleaded guilty to two charges of illegally discharging raw sewage.

The company was fined £1,072,000 and £1m plus costs of £16,476 and a victim’s surcharge of £181, the PA news agency reported. Approximately 240m litres of raw sewage were discharged illegally by the company.

The sewage flowed into the river after two of the three screw pumps failed at Strongford works.

Covered in The Guardian