Sewage Action Group Update

If you have any queries related to this update, or wish to report any incident of concern, please feel free to contact your local SAGLUV representative:

• Andrew Gorton (Eastbury) villagewardens@eastbury.org
• Martyn Wright (East Garston) martynwright345@btinternet.com
• Louisa Freeman (Great Shefford) greatsheffordpc@hotmail.com

SAGLUV Update 6th April 2026

Martyn Wright notes that groundwater levels are dropping consistently, and although the sewers are still charged with groundwater, the risk of serious sewer flooding is reducing. 

Now it's time to review what happened over the winter months following the extensive work to the sewerage network carried out by Thames Water during 2025. Unfortunately, it's not an entirely satisfactory story.

Here are the key points:

• For the four months November to February, rainfall totalled 161% of long term average.
• Groundwater levels were high. Higher than 2024/25, and similar to 2023/24.
• The sewers in Lambourn, Eastbury and East Garston were full, and are still heavily charged.
• Both Lambourn and East Garston ATAC filter units needed to be switched on.
• Lambourn had sewage spilling out of manholes.
• Overflows from FLIP devices in Eastbury at Newtown and Wynshall Lane discharged raw sewage into the River from13th February for approximately 3 weeks, as the spur line pipes were inundated with ground water
• EG had a minor spill but a few ground floor loos were having problems before the ATAC unit was switched on.
• Great Shefford had no known problems.
• Tankers have been deployed at Weston to relieve pressure on the system and on the Sewage Treatment Works. The relining work was successful, but there is still infiltration from lateral and private drains.
• East Shefford Sewage Treatment Works was discharging untreated sewage on a regular basis for about a month despite both ATACs working and tankers running. This was partly due to groundwater levels but the situation was exacerbated by the excessive rainfall over the winter leading to above normal levels of surface water running into the system.
• After the improvement seen in sewer flooding between winters of 2023/24 and 2024/25, the extensive remedial work carried out in 2025 does not seem to have had any significant impact on flooding levels.
• TW have been unable to fully investigate the network due to the system being fully overloaded, but this will be done as soon as levels allow to determine the next phase of relining.
• The ATAC units have been suffering from excessive amounts of "wrong" stuff going down the pipes

On this final point, TW have shared with us some photographic evidence of "sewer abuse" which led to blockages in the East Garston ATAC unit to a degree that has not been seen in that unit before. Wet wipes and various other items could be clearly seen in this photograph which was taken only a day or two after the unit was switched on. Not surprisingly, the filters were soon blocked resulting in the unit shutting down.

As has been said many times before, wet wipes are the main cause of the problem of sewer blockages. And don't be fooled by the term "Flushable". Yes, they will disappear when flushed down the loo, but most are plastic based and stay in one piece.

The SAGLUV team are meeting with Thames Water for a review later this month, after which, we will issue a further up-date.

SAGLUV Update 12th November 2025

Martyn Wright comments that with groundwater levels very low and still dropping, and only average rainfall this autumn, it would be easy to get a bit complacent. But not SAGLUV, nor Thames Water!

The SAGLUV Team were recently invited to a progress review meeting with Thames Water’s Simon Brittain, Head of Thames Valley Waste Operations.

In short, it was a most encouraging update.

At our previous meeting with TW’s Regional Operations Team at the end of October, it was confirmed that all of the relining, repair, and sealing work that had been planned had now been completed, including 500m of relining in Weston that was urgently needed.

However, the purpose of this meeting was to update SAGLUV on TW’s more strategic view of how they plan to address the remaining sewerage issues of our part of the Lambourn Valley, and the wider catchment. Here are the key points:

Additional investment for resolving cases of internal sewer flooding in people’s properties

Over the next 5 years significant investment is planned to reduce response time by more than half. Current response time averages c11 hours, and the additional investment will reduce this to an average of 4 hours for more than 90% of the time.

To achieve this objective, TW are increasing their fleet with an additional 50 fully crewed, specialist vehicles, i.e. tankers, jetters etc.

This type of flooding generally occurs in the winter months, and further benefit from this investment will be gained during the summer, when the crewed vehicles will be used pro-actively for increased planned maintenance and sewer cleaning.

Catchment sewer lining

Some excellent news here: Whereas, to date, TW’s approach has been to identify groundwater infiltration leaks and reline that section to stop the leak. Then to wait for the next period of high groundwater, identify more leaks to repeat the exercise, and so on….

TW are now planning to carry out a pro-active programme of relining during 2026 to cover the stretches of pipework that have not already been relined in the recent and past programmes, whether ingress has been identified or not. This is a major step forward that will result in virtually all TW’s pipework in our area being relined.

The appointment of a specialist infiltration engineer is further evidence that TW is determined to crack the problem of groundwater infiltration which is the root of our problems.

Pumping Stations and Rising Mains

We previously reported that the rising main (main sewer pipe) that runs from Eastbury to East Garston is going to be replaced. That in itself is great news.

However, it may be even better than that. TW are currently investigating whether a pipeline can be laid from Eastbury Pumping Station to the rising main that runs from Lambourn to the Treatment Works. If this can be achieved, the rising main running from Eastbury to East Garston will be redundant, thereby reducing the volume of sewage in the system serving East Garston and Great Shefford. We eagerly await news on that development, but even if it is not possible, the current pipe will still be replaced anyway.

East Shefford Sewage Treatment Works

The results from the recent £14m upgrade of the ES STW continue to be very encouraging as TW are developing their understanding of the newly installed Actiflow plant, which is a ‘first of its kind’ application for wastewater treatment.

The results we quoted in our last report were taken in the winter when the plant was dealing with sewage that was hugely diluted with groundwater. The results below were recorded during the summer months when there was virtually no dilution, providing a much sterner test of the plant’s capabilities. This table shows the EA Permit limits with the actual levels recorded which are very positive:

The sewer work that has been completed, the further work that has been planned, and the STW upgrade, all lead us to believe that our objective of Clear Sewers and a Clean River, can actually be achieved.

Another serious point that Simon wanted to share with us was the issue of sewer blockages, and we feel it is important that this should be widely publicised. The following is an extract from the report that TW produced for us.

Facts and figures on blockages / wet wipes

Why do we need a ban on wet wipes containing plastics?

Environmental and consumer impact:

• Blockages made up of wet wipes are the leading cause of pollution incidents in the Thames Water region.
• 12.5% of all pollutions in 2024 were caused by paper/rag, with wet wipes the main component.
• Across 2024 and 2025 so far, 19.5% of all blockage-caused internal sewer floodings were caused by paper/rag blockages.

What Thames Water is doing:

• We remove an estimated 3.8 billion wet wipes from our network every year.
• We clear 75,000 blockages annually, costing £40.7m – a £200m cost for customers over the current five-year investment cycle (2025-2030).
• In partnership with the PLA (Port of London Authority) we worked to remove 5 million wet wipes from Wet Wipe Island in the River Thames in Hammersmith - equivalent to 12 double-decker buses.
• We cleared a 100-tonne - equivalent to 8 double-decker buses - wet wipe blockage in October 2025 from a sewer in Feltham, West London; taking over a month and requiring specialist teams equipped with gas monitors.

The message is clear! If you have to use them, don’t put them down the loo! We have responsibilities too.

And don’t be fooled by those marked “Flushable”. It’s true they will vanish from sight, but they don’t break down and the blocking effect is the same.

A further meeting with TW’s Operations Team will be held in the New Year, and another strategic level session is planned for the spring.

Thames Water are certainly demonstrating a continued commitment to working with SAGLUV, for which we are extremely grateful.

SAGLUV Update 23rd September 2025

Further to our recent report, here’s a very brief update on the autumn work being carried out on the sewerage networks by Thames Water.

• East Garston: The contractors “Onsite” have confirmed that the sealing of the 2 manholes has been completed. The remaining manhole to manhole lining work at the top end of Front Street has now been planned in to start this week Wednesday to Friday (24^th – 26^th September). This will mean road closures in that area for part of the time. Onsite have completed a letter drop to notify residents and have also spoken directly with customers whose access will be most impacted.
• Weston Village –The work in Weston began on 16^th September and is scheduled to be completed by the end of the month should all go well.
• Eastbury – TW are aware of the manholes that are causing an odour issue and are organising for these to be sealed. However, at the moment, priority is being given to the major sewer relining and infiltration repairs in other parts of the network, as detailed in this update. 

Wynshall Lane FLIP : to completely decouple this sewer flooding protection pump device, from any property / residential power supply, the Control Box is being relocated to a post on the Lane. Work is scheduled to be completed by 30th September. 

• Upper Lambourn – The manholes, with the backdrops that were identified as major infiltration points, have been authorised for repair and a traffic management permit has been applied for, TW are just waiting an update from the council of the approval for a road closure.

This really does look like good progress!