Horton Horton Farm

Wessex Water · WXW00562

This page collects what public records say about one storm overflow: its permit, how often it spilled, and the improvements recorded for it. It is not a water test and does not say whether the water is fit to swim in. A spill count is not a finding that the overflow broke its permit: overflows may spill in heavy rain under their permits, and nothing here can tell whether a spill was allowed.

The record

The permit reference is as the Environment Agency's annual returns give it. The EA's consents register holds the permit itself, but its licence allows internal use only, so its conditions are not published here.

Swim spots downstream

SwimSignal counts this overflow at 1 swim spot. km is along the river network, through any lake on the way. The model weight is SwimSignal's estimate of how much this overflow's spills count at that spot, not a measurement (how it is worked out).

• River Avon at Queen Elizabeth Gardens · 58.6 km upstream · model weight 1% · every overflow there

Spills each year

From the water company's annual return to the Environment Agency, as published: the spill count as the company returned it, and the hours as the Environment Agency works them out from the return's total duration, to two decimal places. Spills are counted by the Environment Agency's 12/24 method: any discharge in the first 12 hours counts as one spill, then one more for each 24 hours with any discharge. A dash: no return for that year. Monitor uptime is the share of the year the monitor worked; a year with low uptime may undercount.

Recent spills

When this page was updated (31 Oct 2026, 20:24), its company's live feed showed it not discharging. The last spill the feed reported ended on 2 June 2026.

How long its spills lasted, 2024 and 2025. How long this overflow's spills lasted in 2024 and 2025, from the water company's monitor records published by the Environment Agency. A record of the past, not a forecast. It says nothing of how much was discharged.

Typical: half its spills were shorter, half longer. Long end: one in ten lasted longer. A spill here is the monitor's events joined when they overlap or start less than an hour apart, so these counts differ from the annual returns' above. More on spill lengths.

Each spill's start and stop times: not listed here. The Environment Agency publishes them for 2024 on, under the Open Government Licence (its start/stop files); this page gives only the summary above.

Improvements recorded

Word for word from the annual returns. The 2023 return left these columns empty. A year's entry covers that year only; work under way may not show until a later return.

The Environment Agency's PR24 Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP) lists this action on this overflow's permit. The date is the date the action should be delivered, a deadline, not a record that it was:

• FARM (Site ID 14058B) (08WW101002, EnvAct_IMP4): due 31 March 2030.

Not published here: Wessex Water's planned dates (its overflow plan layers), which carry no licence; Water UK's National Storm Overflows Plan, whose terms forbid reuse without written permission.

Spills in dry weather

By SwimSignal's count from the EA's start/stop records, this overflow spilled on 18 of 87 dry days in 2025. A dry day here is one with under 0.25 mm of rain that day and on each of the two before, from ERA5-Land rain estimates (the method). This is SwimSignal's inference, not an Environment Agency finding. It names no cause: a blockage, a failed pump and groundwater in the sewer look alike in these records. It is not a finding that any permit was broken.

Send this record

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Send this record

Wessex Water's own contact details are on its contact page. To send the same record to your MP, find your MP on the UK Parliament website.

Storm overflow Horton Horton Farm (WXW00562)

Dear Wessex Water,

I am writing about your storm overflow Horton Horton Farm (Environment Agency id WXW00562, permit 401149). It is upstream of River Avon at Queen Elizabeth Gardens, where people swim.

Your annual returns to the Environment Agency record 2024: 189 spills, 376.47 hours; 2025: 75 spills, 113.91 hours.

Your 2025 return lists its improvement activity as: "Env Act (SODRP) improvement ongoing, Operational improvement completed".

The Environment Agency's PR24 WINEP sets 31 March 2030 as the date for the action "FARM (Site ID 14058B)" (08WW101002).

Could you tell me what is planned for this overflow, and when the work is expected to be finished?

The public record I am referring to is here: https://swimsignal.co.uk/overflow/WXW00562/

Thank you.

Sources and credits

Storm overflow annual returns, including permit references and improvement and investigation activity: © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right, Open Government Licence v3.0; the figures are the water companies' own returns. PR24 Water Industry National Environment Programme: © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2025. All rights reserved. Published under the Open Government Licence. Spill lengths: Environment Agency storm overflow EDM start/stop data 2024 and 2025, Open Government Licence v3.0. Live status: the water companies via the National Storm Overflow Hub, CC BY 4.0. Spots, distances and model weights: SwimSignal, traced on OS Open Rivers (contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026). Sources: annual returns, PR24 WINEP, start/stop data, National Storm Overflow Hub. All credits and licences.