Country estate fined £28,000 for taking too much water from rare chalk stream A wealthy landowner has been fined £28,000 for taking too much water from a rare chalk stream during a drought.
The Environment Agency said the Ilchester Estate in Dorset “deliberately flouted” the conditions of its licence to abstract water from a spring on the headwaters for the chalk stream Dorset Frome at Evershot.
It has a licence costing £120 a year to abstract 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.
But an investigation by the regulator found that, between December 2022 and July 2023, when the area was officially in drought, the estate exceeded the limit for abstraction by nearly 7,500 cubic metres – around three Olympic swimming pools’ worth of water.
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.
