Celebrated by William Wordsworth, Windermere has long epitomised the natural timeless beauty of the Lake District, with millions of tourists drawn to the shores that inspired the poet. But today England’s biggest lake is, some campaigners say, a shadow of its 19th century self: its waters blighted by algae and its wildlife threatened by pollution, in a symbol of all that is wrong with the privatised water industry.
This month the environment secretary, Steve Reed, vowed to break with the recent past, standing on its shores and promising that Labour would “clean up Windermere”. The lake is showing the impact of sewage pollution from United Utilities treatment plants and increased pressure from climate change-induced temperature rises.
Reed’s promise was welcomed as a historic moment by Matt Staniek, a campaigner who has almost singlehandedly brought the lake’s plight to national consciousness. But Staniek, who formed the group Save Windermere, added that it was just the beginning of the mission to save the lake.
He said he wanted to see an end to sewage releases into Windermere, something that has been achieved elsewhere in the world, including at Lake Annecy and Lake Geneva.
The difficulty of that mission was exposed by official figures released by the Environment Agency on Thursday. Windermere, they reveal, was the dumping ground for 6,327 hours of raw sewage discharges from six United Utilities treatment works in 2024.
Guardian analysis of the past five years of raw sewage releases reveals more than 32,000 hours of untreated effluent has been discharged into the Unesco world heritage site.
The lake is almost entirely enclosed, its waters moving so slowly that a single drop of water takes nine months to go from the north side of Windermere to the south. It is also subject to discharges from 1,900 private septic tanks and from agricultural runoff, but the sewage pollution is considered the most significant contributor of phosphorous entering the lake, causing more frequent intense algal blooms, which reduce dissolved oxygen levels and harm water quality and aquatic life, in some cases driving them to extinction.
In 2022 a category one incident, the most serious, led to a mass fish kill in Cunsey Beck, a site of special scientific interest, which feeds into Windermere.
Four years after he began his campaign, Staniek has succeeded in putting its plight at the top of the environment secretary’s inbox. But raw sewage is still pouring into the lake.
“Today’s data release reveals the true extent of the exploitation of England’s largest lake,” he said. “The nation is watching what is happening to the people’s lake, and they want to see it protected – both for now and for future generations. We want to see a legally binding commitment that will eliminate sewage discharges into Windermere once and for all. We want ambition to be turned into action.”
United Utilities said Thursday’s data showed a 28% reduction – 2,460 fewer hours – of raw sewage discharges into Windermere.
The company pointed to the commissioning last August of an additional 2.6m litres of storage at Ambleside and Windermere wastewater treatment plants; the equivalent of just over an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
Matt Hemmings, the chief operating officer at United Utilities, said: “We are committed to playing our part in improving the water quality in the Windermere catchment. We’re already on with delivering £200m of investment to ensure we treat wastewater to even higher standards alongside significantly reducing discharges from the six storm overflows that discharge into the lake.
“The government’s announcement looks at a long-term plan for only rainfall entering Windermere and we will be working with the other partners involved to support this.”
