Representatives of Anglian Water said they are aware of the problem in March and would be looking into ways to address it in the new year.
Representatives of Anglian Water faced a question about the problem of “sewage overflowing into a street”. Councillor Andrew Woollard highlighted the issue at a Fenland District Council meeting on Monday (December 1).
He said there is a specific issue in Barker’s Lane, March, of “neat sewage overflowing into the street” after heavy rainfall. Cllr Woollard asked the representatives of Anglian Water at the meeting when this problem, and other overflow issues, would be fixed.
Grant Tuffs, from Anglian Water, told the meeting that he had met with the relevant team the week before. He said they are aware the “network is overloaded and does spill occasionally” in that area.
He said they believe the issue is caused by misconnections in the area, where some properties are plumbed into the system when they shouldn’t be and when surface water is draining into the sewage system. Mr Tuffs said: “We think this is a case about misconnections in Barker’s Lane and we will be looking into that in the new year.”
The representatives also highlighted wider work ongoing in the Fenland area to reduce the number of storm overflows. Gavin Naylor, regulatory flow data manager at Anglian Water, told councillors that storm overflows occur after periods of high rain, which he said put pressure on the combined sewer systems leading to the need to release excess water.
He said these are Victorian systems and that modern systems have separate networks for taking away sewage and rainwater. Figures were shared at the meeting to show the number of storm overflows recorded in the Fenland district over the past three years.
In 2023 there were 456 recorded spills, with a total duration of 4,872.9 hours. The representatives highlighted that they did not have 100 per cent coverage of the overflow data in 2023.
In 2024 there were 566 spills, with a total duration of 6,047.6 hours. As of October 2025 they said there had been 125 spills this year, with a total duration of 862.8 hours.
Mr Naylor said the number of spills that take place is “hugely impacted by rainfall”, highlighting that 2024 had been a “very wet year”, whereas this year had been drier. Mr Tuffs said Anglian Water has a plan to reduce spills over the next few years.
Mr Naylor added that a big part of this work is reducing the amount of surface water that drains into the sewers and removing misconnections from the network. He said that in some cases Anglian Water had been handing back permits, that allow for storm overflows, to the Environment Agency.
He said: “We are actually surrendering permits where we are finding that we do not need them, we are surrendering them back to the Environment Agency. We have surrendered 10 per cent of permits in the last five years and where that is not possible we have an action plan to address those.”
Councillor Paul Hick said Anglian Water had said “most” of the overflow was rainwater, but said “most is not all” and asked what percentage of the overflows was contaminated water. Mr Naylor said it was hard to give figures for this, as he said each spill was different. However, Mr Tuffs said around 90 to 95 per cent was rainwater and said “it is very, very diluted”.
‘Please do not flush wet wipes down the toilet’
The representatives also highlighted other work Anglian Water is doing to prevent blockages. They explained the ‘just bin it’ campaign recently launched by the company to remind people not to flush things like wet wipes down toilets.
Mr Tuffs said 80 per cent of sewer floodings were caused by “avoidable blockages”, but said they had seen a reduction in the number of people flushing things they shouldn’t.
He told councillors that Anglian Water does target “hotspot areas” and can find individual streets or even houses, where inappropriate things are being flushed.
Mr Tuffs explained that in these situations they will send people round to offer a “gentle reminder” about what should and should not be flushed and to have a conversation about the impact of flushing things like wipes.
Councillor Lucie Foice-Beard highlighted that some wipes are advertised as being “flushable”. Mr Tuffs said this was a “good point” and told the meeting that just because something was described as “flushable” did not mean it would break down.
He said they did not want to ban wet wipes, but said binning them was the best solution for disposing of them rather than flushing them down the toilet.
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