Barratt Homes have been ordered to pay more than £13,400 in fines and costs after sewage escaped from a housing development and polluted a stream close to the Tamar Valley.

The case was brought by the Environment Agency.

On September 2, 2009 a member of the public reported to the Agency that a stream running through their garden was discoloured and smelt of sewage. An officer visited the property and saw sewage fungus growing on the bed of a stream that flows into a tributary of the River Tamar.

The pollution was later traced to a housing development at Calcos Place, Station Road, Kelly Bray near Callington where Barratt Homes had built 84 new homes. Sewage from the properties is stored in holding tanks before being pumped to a South West Water gravity sewer prior to treatment.

Agency officers could smell sewage and saw liquid seeping out of a bank beside the sewage tanks and pumping station when they arrived at the site to carry out an inspection. Checks by the Environment Agency showed the new development’s pumping station had failed causing sewage to overflow from a collection chamber onto the ground and into a nearby stream.

When Barratt Homes were interviewed, it became apparent the pollution resulted from a misunderstanding between the defendant company and a third party that took over the maintenance and monitoring of the pumping station in July 2009. When the pollution occurred, telemetry required for the monitoring was not in place.

It was unclear who was responsible for the monitoring of the pumping station until such time as the telemetry was installed. The absence of any monitoring meant nobody knew there had been a mechanical failure and that sewage was spilling out of the pumping station and polluting a stream.

Louise Weller for the Environment Agency said:

‘We estimate sewage escaped intermittently for at least two weeks. This would have had a serious effect on water quality in the stream. It was avoidable and resulted through a lack proper monitoring."

‘Barratt Homes are a national house builder. They are well aware of the potential impact their activities can have on watercourses. In this case, the failure to ensure an adequate system of monitoring was in place resulted in a stream being polluted.’