Portsmouth sewage spill sites revealed by interactive map including overflows into The Solent and Langstone Harbour

Sewage discharges have polluted every corner of England and Wales in the last year, as shown on an interactive map. Prominent overflow sites around Portsmouth include Pier Road Pumping station, with 133.5 hours of sewage discharged, Budds Farm Waterworks with 647.25 into Langstone Harbour and a Fareham High Street site which expelled sewage into Wallington River for 331.11 hours. Data was collected last year by The Rivers Trust, Environment Agency and Welsh Water.

The water industry faces widespread pressure to clean up its performance after recording almost 400,000 sewage dumping incidents in England and Wales in 2022, totalling to 3.3 million hours of pollution pouring into the country’s waterways.

• Interactive maps show river and sea pollution where you live
• Southern Water admits customer expectations 'not met'
• Southern Water says number of storm overflows 'still isn’t good enough'
• Millions more to be spent by Southern Water to tackle discharges of sewage

Earlier this year Water UK, the industry regulator, apologised on behalf of companies for “not acting quickly enough” to tackle sewage spills, announcing a multi-billion pound investment to upgrade our Victorian sewage system.

A Water UK spokesperson said: “Over the next seven years water and sewerage companies plan to spend £10 billion in the biggest transformation of our sewers since the Victorian era.”

The Rivers Trust said: "Near real-time data on sewage discharges is the next key step in understanding pollution and how to stop it, so we were pleased when the water industry announced that it will be publishing that data this year. To us, it's absolutely vital that the data is published in a way that is accessible to the public."

A Defra spokesperson added: “Our ambitious Plan for Water sets out the increased investment, tougher enforcement and tighter regulation needed to clean up our waterways. We have recently confirmed £1.1 billion in new, accelerated investment to tackle storm overflows.

“We have driven up the number of storm overflows monitored across the network, from just seven per cent in 2010 to 91% now monitored. Under the Environment Act, water companies must improve transparency by reporting on discharges from storm overflows in near real-time by March 2025.”