A WATER company boss said that people's 'acceptance' had changed towards sewage spills into Windermere. 

Andrew Kendall, wastewater lead for water company United Utilities, which serves seven million customers across the north west, appeared on BBC Radio Cumbria on Wednesday, 23 October.

This came after the BBC published a report claiming that the water company illegally dumped between 143 million and 286 litres of sewage into the Windermere catchment between 2021 and 2023. 

Mr Kendall said that he could not comment 'whether that is illegal or legal' and was something for the regulator to decide, which is the Environment Agency. 

When presenter Stephanie Finnon put the 143 million figure in front of Mr Kendall, she asked: "This sounds truly horrendous those stats doesn't it?"

Mr Kendall replied: "I can understand that perspective absolutely, what I would say is we absolutely value and understand the importance of Windermere in our region. Over the past 25 years we've spent a lot of money in Windermere. We've invested over £75million in that system." 

United Utilities had reduced storm overflow spills from 200 a year in the 1990s to an average of 30 in Bowness, Mr Kendall claimed. The region uses a combined sewage system, which means that there are sewage discharges when ground water enters the system to prevent flooding in other areas, he added. 

"We recognise that that's not necessarily acceptable any more - we're pushing on to make further improvement in the next five to ten years," Mr Kendall said. 

Water companies are legally allowed to discharge during periods of exceptional rainfall, but the broadcaster found that the Glebe Road pumping station had failed to comply with the permit. 

READ MORE: Lake District: Millions of litres of sewage 'illegally dumped'

Mr Kendall said that exceptional circumstances 'can mean many things' and claimed that the region had over 200 per cent of the average rainfall in one month earlier this year.  

The firm is meant to notify the Environment Agency but United Utilities reportedly failed to do this for some of the discharges identified by the analysis over three years.

Mr Kendall said that the water company is proud to be an 'industry leader' in self reporting incidents to the agency. 

Mr Kendall was then questioned on whether the figure could be taken down to 0. He called this 'a completely different ball game.' 

"We're going to have to manage that surface water," he said. "We're going to have to either remove it or store it. If we were to remove it all that would mean significant disruption to communities."

Campaign group Save Windermere has called for a 'Lake Annecy solution' which would involve removing all sewage outlets into the lake. United Utilities said previously that this would involve building a new sewage system that would take up to 15 years to complete. 

"There is a need to take into consideration other things such as the economy when we are driving them solutions. To get to 0 that is a much broader conversation with wider other stakeholders other community groups etc it's not just about United Utilities," Mr Kendall said.