Estate of one of Britain’s richest women fined for using three Olympic pools worth of water during drought

Charlotte Townshend reportedly has a fortune of nearly £500million. An estate owned by one of Britain’s richest women has been fined nearly £28,000 after it used the equivalent of three Olympic-sized swimming pools worth of water during a drought. The Ilchester Estate in Dorset is owned by Charlotte Townshend, who was listed at 287 in the 2024 Sunday Times Rich List thanks to inherited wealth, with her fortune now estimated at a staggering £489 million.

The estate, which spans over 15,000 acres of land in the West Country, “deliberately flouted” the conditions of its licence to abstract water from a spring on the headwaters for the chalk stream Dorset Frome at Evershot, the Environment Agency (EA) said. It exceeded the limit for water abstraction by nearly 7,500 cubic metres between December 2022 and July 2023, according to an investigation by the EA.

The estate has a licence costing £120 a year to take water to supply its houses, offices, gardens and farms from the Dorset Frome, setting its own charges for supplying the water to businesses and residents on the estate. It has now paid a penalty of £19,777.69 plus costs of £8,298.60 to the regulator for exceeding the conditions after previously being warned to stop over-abstracting water. The estate was advised in 2018 how it could apply for an increase in its permitted abstraction levels, but said steps would be taken to reduce the amount of water being used.

But it continued to take water above the permitted level each year through to 2023, the EA said. Melbury House, a Grade I listed mansion on the estate, is home to Ms Townshend. She inherited the estate from her mother, Theresa Fox-Strangways (Viscountess Galway), daughter and heiress of Harry Fox-Strangways, 7th Earl of Ilchester. Ms Townshend is also reported to own at least 20 acres of property in Holland Park, one of the wealthiest areas of London.

She also runs the Abbotsbury Swannery, the world’s only managed colony of nesting mute swans. The swannery was bought by her ancestors from Henry VIII in 1543. Ms Townshend is reported to be the only person in the country other than the King who is allowed to own swans. The Dorset Frome is one of only 200 chalk streams in the world, the vast majority of which are in the UK and provide a unique habitat for wildlife as well as mineral-rich pure water.

Chalk streams are a threatened habitat, hit by over-abstraction and climate change reducing the amount of water in them, while pollution and invasive species are also damaging the waterways and the native wildlife that rely on them. Carolyn Lane, senior environment officer for the Environment Agency, said: “Chalk streams are stunningly beautiful, but ecologically sensitive, watercourses. Where companies or individuals hold licences to take water from them, they cannot ignore the conditions attached and take as much water as they like.

“In this case, the Ilchester Estate not only deliberately flouted the conditions, they did so during a drought, when it is likely that damage will have been done to the river and the surrounding environment it supports.”. A spokesperson for Ilchester Estate told the Dorset Echo, they “very much regret” the breach. “Since this has taken place, the Estate has invested in its water infrastructure in order to reduce the amount of leaks and to monitor abstraction now on a daily basis,” the spokesperson added.