Environment Agency: Builder Pays £201,500 for Water Pollution

We use some essential cookies to make this website work. We’d like to set additional cookies to understand how you use GOV.UK, remember your settings and improve government services. We also use cookies set by other sites to help us deliver content from their services. You have accepted additional cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time. You have rejected additional cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time. The Environment Agency has secured a six-figure sum for environmental causes from a national house builder after silt was jetted into watercourses. Silt blasted out the drains of a housing development in Yate polluted the nearby watercourse. BDW Trading, part of the Barratt Redrow group, polluted the Ladden Brook and Tanhouse stream in Yate over six days in July 2022. The silt came from its Ladden Garden Village development after a contractor jet washed silt while cleaning and surveying land drainage. The silt entered the Ladden Brook and Tanhouse stream, prompting an Environment Agency investigation. BDW Trading acknowledged it bore the responsibility and spent over £180,000 on remediation, staff training and better practices on managing surface water. The Tanhouse stream after silt entered the watercourse James Edees of the Environment Agency said: An incident like this would have never happened with proper procedure in place. But BDW Trading’s response to cleaning up the mess and investment in preventing it from happening again means we can accept an enforcement undertaking on this occasion. This means environmental causes will get money to continue their good work and we can draw a line under this issue. Projects benefiting from the enforcement undertaking include: £165,000 to the Bristol and Avon Rivers Trust for the River Chew catchment fish recovery project, a community engagement project and eDNA fish monitoring. £11,500 to the Tortworth Forest Centre in Gloucestershire for a woodland wellbeing programme and tree planting. £25,000 to the Avon Wildlife Trust for the costs of a community ecologist. BDW Trading also paid the Environment Agency’s costs and acquired a permit to ensure water discharges are properly regulated. The following links open in a new tab Share on Facebook (opens in new tab) Share on X (opens in new tab) Updates to this page Published 3 September 2026 Is this page useful? Maybe Yes this page is useful No this page is not useful Thank you for your feedback Report a problem with this page Help us improve GOV.UK Do not include personal or financial information like your National Insurance number or credit card details. To help us improve GOV.UK, we’d like to know more about your visit today. Please fill in this survey (opens in a new tab and requires JavaScript ) .