23/08/2026
Regarding the lasted spill from Pooh bridge Giggetty road.
Good afternoon, Marie,
Apologies it has taken me some time to email you as I promised to do so following our site meeting at Giggetty Lane CSO in Wombourne a few weeks ago.
Please find attached a document with photos outlining our work to improve the CSO performance over the past 12 months or so.
From our meeting we took away the following actions.
Signage:
We discussed fitting signage to the CSO – most practically on the railings for the bridge to make passersby aware this is a monitored CSO outfall urging anyone to report any concerns or issues to our 24/7 control for crew dispatch. I understand from our flooding prevention teams that a new sign was fitted a few days after our site visit – please let me know if that’s not the case and I can relook at this.
Feedback:
You mentioned that it is sometimes news to you and the local residents of the improvement work we have done because often our operational teams will go in and focus on the work as opposed to sharing such communications. I have attached a PDF of the work carried out to extend the weir wall which was carried out on 24th June 2024 and has halved the amount of spills at the site. The protective wall is presently at the highest level we can extend it to without our computer model data saying any more would risk flooding to properties upstream. Going forward any planned or reactive works we attempt can be communicated to you via email or Whatsapp via my colleague Ashley to your preference.
Storage Tanker / long term strategy:
You asked us about ways to stop any flows of sewer water to the watercourse here. The CSO has been in operation at this location a long time and, of course, if we were starting a sewer network from scratch we wouldn’t build them this way, it is designed and permitted by the Environment Agency to spill out excess water in times of wet weather to prevent flooding and so fully getting the number of spills to zero is a challenge.
We have been exploring a number of ways to reduce the spills including building an online storage tank in the grassed area next to the CSO (long term solution) and cleansing the downstream foul sewers as far as our pumping station on Bridgenorth Road. Whilst the latter of these is something we are looking to action soon an online storage tank is something that will need to be reviewed in the next business AMP and to be honest, may lose out on being commissioned due to other projects with stronger cost/benefit results.
I hope that serves as a reasonable summary of the site to the best of my recent knowledge. Please feel free to share with those in your community who would wish to be made aware.
Mark
Mark Holmes
CSO Improvement Manager
Severn Trent Water
