Yorkshire Water confirms 15 hour-long sewage spill into Chesterfield's River Rother during weekend

The water company confirmed the discharge – originating from a sewer overflow on St Augustines Avenue – began on Sunday at 10.48pm and was finally brought under control yesterday (Monday) at 2.01pm.

However, third party website sewagemap.co.uk still has the discharge marked as “active” today (Tuesday), meaning if data from sewagemap.co.uk is accurate the discharge was still happening 35 hours after it first started, at the time of writing.

Speaking about the mismatch between its own data and that of sewagemap.co.uk, a spokesperson for Yorkshire Water said they were “inclined to say” the reports of the continuing discharge were an “issue” with sewagemap.co.uk.

Derbyshire Times was alerted to the leak yesterday (Monday) when a member of the public contacted us to report “raw sewage” on the surface of the River Rother nearby to Brimington Road and Chesterfield’s Waterside development.

However the walker said he noticed the pollution on Saturday afternoon. He said after passing over the bypass and the river he noticed an “unpleasant smell”. “There was all this frothy, brown stuff floating around and you could just smell the sewage in the air,” he said. “Like when you walk past a sewage works.

“We haven’t had floods of late so why is this sewage being dumped into the river. Why does the environment have to come last it's not right In this day and age?”

In a full statement Yorkshire Water said the storm overflow on St Augustine’s Avenue initially discharged in response to heavy rainfall. The spokesperson added: “When the discharge lasted longer than expected colleagues attended the overflow to investigate.

"The continued discharge was found to be caused by a blockage of wet wipes and a dead animal in the sewer network which were resulting in wastewater flows being backed up and escaping via the overflow. Our colleagues cleared the blockage as quickly as they could, and flows returned to normal.

"We’d like to remind customers that wipes should not be flushed - instead, only the three Ps should go down the toilet – pee, poo, and paper. Wipes don't break down and frequently result in blockages on our sewer network.

"We understand that customers will be frustrated that the overflow operated in the first place. We’re investing £1.5bn over the next five years to reduce discharges from our combined storm overflows, and this includes plans for investment at St Augustine’s Avenue."

Chesterfield MP Toby Perkins thanked Derbyshire Times for alerting him to the spillage, adding: “While I appreciate the reasons for this blockage may not have been their (Yorkshire Water’s) fault, it is still very disappointing that sewage was allowed to leak into the Rother for over 14 hours – I have notified the Environment Agency of the incident.

“Labour are taking tough action against water companies that allow sewage to leak into our waterways with an increase in fines – which will then be used to help with cleaning our rivers and seas and criminal proceedings against any water company executives who cover up or hide illegal sewage spills, meaning they could face up to two years in prison.

“New powers brought in recently also saw us ban bonuses for 10 water company executives in England, including the boss of Yorkshire Water, with immediate effect due to the failure to tackle serious sewage pollution.”