Can our sewage system cope?

Councillor John Williams has been looking into the issue of sewage capacity in Shipston:

Many residents assume that Shipston’s Fell Mill facility functions as a fully self-contained sewage treatment plant capable of processing all our local wastewater on-site. However, data recently obtained directly from Severn Trent under an Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) request paints a very diff erent picture: Fell Mill relies heavily on a large-scale tankering operation to haul raw sewage away by road.

The fi gures reveal a dramatic surge in road transport off -site. In 2020, the facility recorded 161 tanker trips removing 3,182 cubic metres of sewage. By 2025, that volume had more than doubled to 314 trips taking away 6,407m3.

In total, between 2020 and mid-2026, 1,352 heavy tanker loads—carrying over 27.5 million litres of sewage—have been trucked out of Shipston to distant processing sites.

With multiple planning applications proposing new housing developments across the town, these numbers highlight a critical issue: our local infrastructure is already struggling to cope.

If new housing is approved without major investments in local wastewater/sewage processing capacity, the additional load cannot be treated on-site. Instead, it will simply drive up the number of heavy tankers navigating our local roads.

Rather than relying on continuous road haulage as a temporary patch, Severn Trent must focus on investing in proper permanent infrastructure and expanding treatment plant capacity to ensure the town’s system can actually handle current and future demand.

This information was obtained using an Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) request. Like Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, EIR gives any resident or community group the legal right to request environmental and utility data directly from providers like Severn Trent, free of charge. It must be answered in 20 days. EIR@severntrent.co.uk