Hello

Thank you very much for your Environmental Information Regulation (EIR)
request. As per the regulations, we endeavour to provide a response no
later than 20 working days after the date of receipt of the request for
the information. It may take us longer to respond to your request if we
believe the request to be complex, or the volume of information requested
means that we may not be able to comply with the request within the
timeframe. We will however inform you of this prior to the 20-working day
deadline.

Kind regards, Severn Trent, EIR team. Severn Trent Plc (registered number
2366619) and Severn Trent Water Limited (registered number 2366686)
(together the "Companies") are both limited companies registered in
England & Wales with their registered office at Severn Trent Centre, 2 St
John's Street, Coventry, CV1 2LZ This email (which includes any files
attached to it) is not contractually binding on its own, is intended
solely for the named recipient and may contain CONFIDENTIAL, legally
privileged or trade secret information protected by law. If you have
received this message in error please delete it and notify us immediately
by telephoning +44 2477715000. If you are not the intended recipient you
must not use, disclose, distribute, reproduce, retransmit, retain or rely
on any information contained in this email. Please note the Companies
reserve the right to monitor email communicationsin accordance with
applicable law and regulations. To the extent permitted by law, neither
the Companies or any of their subsidiaries, nor any employee, director or
officer thereof, accepts any liability whatsoever in relation to this
email including liability arising from any external breach of security or
confidentiality or for virus infection or for statements made by the
sender as these are not necessarily made on behalf of the Companies.
Reduce waste! Please consider the environment before printing this email

ST Classification: OFFICIAL PERSONAL

Dear Robert,

Thank you for your recent request for information. In our response we have
outlined some background and context to our work with rivers and the
environment, along with providing you data that we think will be useful.

Wider context about our work with rivers:

Severn Trent have one of the largest environmental investment programmes
in the industry, and during the last five years we have improved 1600km of
river and are going even further by improving over 2100km over the next 5
years.   

Severn Trent operations currently account for less than 16% of the reasons
why rivers across the Midlands aren’t reaching a good ecological status;
with the remaining [1]84% of reasons attributed to agriculture, industry,
house building, local councils, highways and other factors.

In addition to the investment, we recognise we need (and want) to do more
to protect rivers and reduce the need for overflows, which is why we
launched an [2]industry leading Get River Positive action plan to improve
the health of our region’s rivers.  Within that plan, we have five
[3]pledges underpinning our overall commitment:

 1. Ensure none of our operations cause any harm to rivers (measured by
the Environment Agency’s methodology) by 2030.
 2. Create more opportunities for everyone to enjoy our regions’ rivers.
 3. Support others to improve and care for rivers.
 4. Enhance our rivers and create new habitats so wildlife can thrive.
 5. Be open and transparent about our performance and our plans.

Central to these pledges is the commitment that our operations will not be
the reason for any stretch of river in the whole Severn Trent region to be
classified as unhealthy by 2030.  This is 20 years ahead of Defra’s Storm
Overflows Reduction Plan, and we’re continuing to invest c.£100m a year to
go even further in supporting that.  In the shorter term, we have also
committed to reducing activations from storm overflows to an average of 20
per year by 2025, following consultation and feedback from NGOs, aligned
with the Defra target of 10 activations a year by 2050.

On a very practical level, our new River Rangers team carry out vital
operational, monitoring and sampling activities, as well as addressing the
aesthetic quality of our rivers though the removal of unsightly rag and
other debris, which we know causes real distress in our communities. Above
all, we think it is important to look at the health of our rivers from a
holistic perspective, which is why we have also focussed on enhancing
wider biodiversity with our Great Big Nature Boost programme.

The energy and pace of change we are driving can be seen by the fact that
we improved the biodiversity of 7277 hectares of land since 2020. This
covers 2% of the nations’ Nature Recovery target.  We will continue to
take a leadership role across our catchments, expanding our existing
highly successful Farm to Tap and Specialist On-Farm Advice schemes to
9,000 farmers in our region, helping them reduce their impact on the
river.

We have also been carrying out important work with the Beavers Trust on
re-introducing beavers in our rivers, to restore vital riparian buffers.

As we deliver the above programmes, we continue to work with industry,
councils and other catchment users using risk mapping, data analysis and
catchment walkovers covering 44 catchments to fully play our part in
achieving the 25 year Environment Plan target of 75% good ecological
status in UK rivers as soon as possible.

Data you have requested

In terms of your request regarding the number of discharges in the River
Avon, you can access this information on our website on the link below.
Recording the number of discharges from storm overflows is referred to as
Event Duration Monitoring (EDM), this data is provided to the Environment
Agency as part of our regulatory Annual Return. Please note that EDM data
is available on our website from 2019 onwards, EDM data for 2023 will be
published early 2024, following submission to the Environment Agency.

 1. EDM monitoring data can be found here (column K details the receiving
waterbody):

[4]https://www.stwater.co.uk/get-river-posi...

We have also provided some useful links we think you might be interested
in, these provide more detailed information about our Get River Positive
pledges, and what we are doing to enhance our environment and
biodiversity.

 2. You can find more information about out Get River Positive pledges
here: [5]https://www.stwater.co.uk/get-river-posi...

 3. You can find more information about how we are supporting biodiversity
in our region here:
[6]https://www.stwater.co.uk/about-us/envir.... This
includes our [7]Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, how we are
[8]Caring for our Environment, [9]Our Approach to Championing
Pollinators, and how we are [10]Protecting and Enhancing Sites of
special Scientific Interest.

 4. The Environment Agency also publish details regarding river water
quality on their website here:
[11]https://environment.data.gov.uk/catchmen...

Best Wishes,

Severn Trent EIR Team

Severn Trent Plc (registered number 2366619) and Severn Trent Water
Limited (registered number 2366686) (together the "Companies") are both
limited companies registered in England & Wales with their registered
office at Severn Trent Centre, 2 St John's Street, Coventry, CV1 2LZ This
email (which includes any files attached to it) is not contractually
binding on its own, is intended solely for the named recipient and may
contain CONFIDENTIAL, legally privileged or trade secret information
protected by law. If you have received this message in error please delete
it and notify us immediately by telephoning +44 2477715000. If you are not
the intended recipient you must not use, disclose, distribute, reproduce,
retransmit, retain or rely on any information contained in this email.
Please note the Companies reserve the right to monitor email
communicationsin accordance with applicable law and regulations. To the
extent permitted by law, neither the Companies or any of their
subsidiaries, nor any employee, director or officer thereof, accepts any
liability whatsoever in relation to this email including liability arising
from any external breach of security or confidentiality or for virus
infection or for statements made by the sender as these are not
necessarily made on behalf of the Companies. Reduce waste! Please consider
the environment before printing this email

References

Visible links
1. https://www.stwater.co.uk/get-river-posi...
2. https://www.stwater.co.uk/get-river-posi...
3. https://www.stwater.co.uk/get-river-posi...
4. https://www.stwater.co.uk/get-river-posi...
5. https://www.stwater.co.uk/get-river-posi...
6. https://www.stwater.co.uk/about-us/envir...
7. https://www.stwater.co.uk/content/dam/st...
8. https://www.severntrent.com/content/dam/...
9. https://www.stwater.co.uk/content/dam/st...
10. https://www.stwater.co.uk/content/dam/st...
11. https://environment.data.gov.uk/catchmen...