The Environment Agency has accepted two Enforcement Undertakings totalling £550,000 from Northumbrian Water, following separate sewage discharges at Sedgeletch and Lanchester treatment works. The payments will fund environmental charities: £350,000 to Wear Rivers Trust for a 2020 discharge into Moors Burn that damaged 5.5 km of the stream, and £200,000 to Durham Wildlife Trust for a 2021 discharge into Smallhope Burn that exceeded permitted ammonia levels. The money will support habitat restoration, fish‑migration improvements, and pollution reduction projects in the local catchments. Northumbrian Water also carried out remedial actions, installed telemetry at Sedgeletch, invested about £7 million at Lanchester, and will cover all investigation costs. The move follows the agency’s intensified crackdown on water‑industry pollution.
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