Anglian Water fined 1.6 million pounds for sewage pollution of the River Brain

16 October 2026

Anglian Water has been fined 1.6 million pounds after repeated sewage pollution of the River Brain over six weeks in 2022. Sitting at Cambridge magistrates' court on 14 October, district judge Timothy King also ordered the company to pay costs of 27,334 pounds and a 190 pound surcharge. The court heard that local mismanagement led to a general decline in water quality between April and June 2022, that the company ignored alarms telling it poorly treated sewage was being discharged into the river because of a faulty valve, and that staff did not talk to each other about the incidents. The resulting pollution stretched for nearly 14 km along the Brain between Braintree and Witham. Environment Agency monitors showed levels of toxic ammonia that were the highest recorded in the river over the previous ten years, and an investigation traced the source to Anglian Water's water recycling centre in Braintree, where a valve had been broken for a week before the first incident in April 2022. The Environment Agency charged the company with causing a discharge of untreated sewage into the River Brain outside its environmental permit between 13 April and 2 June 2022, and with failing to comply with the permit as a separate offence; the prosecution was brought under regulations 12(1)(a), 38(1)(a) and 38(2) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016. In the 12 months to March, officers completed nearly 1,800 inspections of Anglian Water's wastewater sites, with more than 830 actions identified. Water companies in England have been successfully prosecuted by the Environment Agency more than 70 times since 2015, securing 169 million pounds in fines.