Work is planned for village site with continuous flow of sewage into river

The storm drain at Bloxham has been operating all year so far

The continuous dumping of raw sewage into the Bloxham Brook by the village’s treatment works is set to be tackled by Thames Water.

The site’s storm drain has been operating continually since December 30, some 412 hours by midday today (January 16).   Bloxham Treatment Works is the worst performing in our area.

Thames Water has told Banbury FM they have work planned to increase the volume of incoming sewage water treated by the Bloxham works.   The company are targeting the work for this spring and says this should result in the amount of sewage being discharged into the river being “greatly reduced”.

Storm drains are used when the volume of sewage water arriving at a site is too much for the treatment work to deal with.   Rather than the system blocking and backing up into people’s homes the storm drain is opened and the excess bypasses the treatment works and is dumped directly into the river.

A Thames Water spokesperson told us: “There is work planned to increase flow to treatment at Bloxham Sewage Treatment Works. We hope to finalise this important upgrade by the Spring of this year.  The increase in capacity should greatly reduce the need to discharge.

“Our shareholders have recently approved a business plan that sees us spending an additional £2billion beyond what our customers are funding so we can improve outcomes for customers, leakage and river health.  This will allow us to deliver our commitment to a 50% reduction in the total annual duration of discharges across London and the Thames Valley by 2030, and within that an 80% reduction in sensitive catchments.

“We have a long way to go – and we certainly can’t do it on our own – but the ambition is clear.”

The Bloxham Brook leaves the village and runs past Milton before joining the Sor Brook in Adderbury.

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Published: 16/01/2023 12:06pm by Banbury FM Newsteam

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