Thames Water fined £4m after Oxford sewage leak

The Environment Agency say 3,000 fish died as a result of the leak but the company say it was far fewer.

Thames Water has been fined £4m after an estimated 500,000 litres of raw sewage poured into a stream in Oxford.

The Environment Agency said 3,000 fish died after a leak flowed for 30 hours and polluted a 1.8 mile (3km) stretch of Hinksey Stream in July 2016.

The company admitted the system that failed had not been checked for 10 years, Aylesbury Crown Court heard.

It said it was "deeply sorry" for the "entirely unacceptable" incident but said "things have changed".

The leak was caused by an emergency overflow pouring into the stream. It should have been checked every six months.

Robert Davis, a senior environment officer at the Environment Agency, said the company had failed to undertake "basic and essential maintenance".

Thames Water admitted the sewage system that caused the pollution hadn't been checked for 10 years

Sentencing the company, Judge Francis Sheridan said the pollution was "avoidable" and was a "serious failure".

Richard Aylard, Thames Water's sustainability director, said: "We pleaded guilty at the first opportunity and accept the judgement of the court that we failed badly by not inspecting and cleaning this part of the sewer system.

"But things have changed. As part of the comprehensive turnaround programme we are doing five times as much sewer cleaning as we were in 2016."

The company was fined £20.3m in 2017 after it pumped 1.9bn litres of untreated sewage into the River Thames in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, killing fish and birds, in 2013 and 2014.

It was fined £2m in December 2018 for a "reckless failure" after raw sewage flowed into a brook near Milton-under-Wychwood in 2015.

And it was fined a further £2.3m in March for polluting a stream with sewage in Fawley Court Ditch in Henley-on-Thames in 2016.