Businesses in a County Durham village are being urged to help take care of the environment after a release of oil into the area’s sewers reached Northumbrian Water’s Sacriston sewage treatment works and a local watercourse, the Black Burn.

A major home building company has been fined £100,000 over a pollution incident relating to a housing development in Huddersfield.

 A Skellingthorpe business has been fined £15,300 and ordered to pay more than £9,000 in costs for polluting 3.5km of local watercourse.

In a case brought by the Environment Agency, Molson Coors Brewery (UK) Limited (MCB Ltd) appeared in court on 17 March 2016 for polluting the River Wey and the Lasham Drain (which carries surface water runoff and is a tributary of the River Wey).

In a case brought by the Environment Agency,  Thames Water has been fined £380,000 for polluting a rural stream  at its  Princes Risborough sewage treatment works (STW)site attributed to “lamentable” management failures.

Yorkshire Water Services Ltd has been fined £600,000 after an ageing sewage pipe burst and killed hundreds of fish in a Wakefield lake.

Thames Water has been fined a record-breaking £1 million for polluting the Grand Union Canal - the highest ever fine for a water company in a prosecution brought by the Environment Agency.

South West Water has been fined £300,000 – its  largest fine ever - after pollution of the Craddock stream in Devon due to a combination of equipment failure and poor management, according to the Environment Agency.

Essar Oil (UK) Ltd was sentenced at Chester Crown Court last week following a prosecution brought by the Environment Agency. The firm was fined £497,284 and ordered to pay costs of £40,000 in relation to 2 separate incidents which occurred in 2012.

In a case brought by the Environment Agency, South West Water has been fined £214,000 and ordered to pay £27,750 in costs for polluting the River Tamar.