Water and energy in Chichester
Figures last changed 20 October 2026. House prices for Chichester are on the main Chichester page.
On this page: How often does sewage spill near Chichester? · How clean is the water for swimming near Chichester? · How energy efficient are homes in Chichester?
How often does sewage spill near Chichester?
The four monitored storm overflows within 1.5 km of a Chichester postcode spilled 240 times in 2025, for 4,617 hours in all, on the water companies' returns to the Environment Agency. The busiest was Lavant wastewater works, which empties into the River Lavant and groundwater via a wetland: 166 spills and 3,583 hours. In 2024, the monitored overflows within 1.5 km of a Chichester postcode spilled 420 times, for 8,820 hours. The Environment Agency put much of the fall across England down to an unusually dry 2025 after a particularly wet 2024. A storm overflow lets diluted sewage out into a river or the sea when heavy rain overloads the sewers. The counts use the Agency's method, in which the first 12 hours of a spill count as one and each 24 hours after that as another.
Source: Environment Agency storm overflow annual returns (Event Duration Monitoring) · Environment Agency: fewer and shorter storm overflow spills in 2025.
What locals say
- The River Lavant is the city's own sewage story. Volunteer citizen scientists test the river's water, and the MP, Jess Brown-Fuller, has been out to meet them. Sussex Express: Jess Brown-Fuller MP meets citizen scientists monitoring water quality in the River Lavant
How clean is the water for swimming near Chichester?
Chichester has no designated bathing water of its own. The nearest beach the Agency does rate is Pagham, a median 8.4 km from Chichester's postcodes in a straight line, rated Good for 2025; next is Bognor Regis (Aldwick), 8.9 km away and rated Poor. The nearest rated Excellent is Bracklesham Bay, 10.5 km away. A rating covers the last four summers of samples, not any one day, and new ratings come out each November. In the bathing season the Agency also issues a daily pollution risk forecast for Pagham and Bognor Regis (Aldwick).
How energy efficient are homes in Chichester?
Better than the area as a whole, on their energy performance certificates. Of the 12,482 homes in Chichester with a certificate on the government register, 63% are rated C or better, against 50% across the Chichester council area; the most common rating is C. Mains gas heats 75% of the 12,482 whose main fuel is recorded, and electricity 17%. 92 have a heat pump. Of the 11,598 whose certificate records it, only 17% have no mains gas connection; 884 certificates do not say. 6% have solar panels, and 109 have solar water heating. 38% are flats or maisonettes. A certificate is only made when a home is sold, let or built, so homes that rarely change hands are missing, and an old one shows a home as it was then. Each home's latest certificate is used: issued between 2008 and 2026, half of them since 2021.
Source: Energy Performance of Buildings Register (GOV.UK Get energy performance of buildings data).
Figures cover 1128 postcodes in Chichester. How these figures are made.