A FIRE caused a pollution incident on the River Itchen overnight near Winchester.

Winchester firefighters believed they had prevented a major environmental incident by stopping raw sewage getting into the River Itchen.

But some foul water did seep into a watercourse of the River Itchen, said a Southern Water spokesman today.

The extent of the pollution was being assessed. An Environment Agency spokesman said today: “Sewage has gone into the river. We have been taking samples, but there is no environmental impact we can detect.”

An electrical fire at the Garnier Road pumping station in St Cross at 7pm caused major pumps to fail creating the risk of sewage getting into the river, one of the finest chalk streams in the country.

Fire crews set up barriers that prevented a major ingress of foul water getting into the river.

Garnier Road, a main route across the south of the city, was closed overnight and reopened this morning.

Crew manager Dan Joslin, of Winchester Fire Station, said this morning: "We dealt with the electrical fire in the pumphouse quite quickly, the only trouble was caused the main pumps for sewage to fail.

"We had to call in our environmental protection teams and put dams up to stop overspilling. We managed to stop any spilling to the river and road. Tankers were in place. We had to close Garnier Road to get tankers down the road.

"We were there for the protection of the environment to prevent the spilling of raw sewage in to the River Itchen. Nothing from the surface got in."

CM Joslin said the main pumps were working later on Tuesday morning. The cause of the initial fire was unclear.

Two pumps from Winchester attended and environmental protection units from Alton and Romsey.

A Southern Water spokesman said: “Protecting the environment is always a priority for us but, regrettably, some flows which were filtered through screens, did enter the river. We’re working with the Environment Agency to assess the impact of this unforeseen emergency.

“There was a fire in a control panel at our pumping station in Garnier Road, Winchester, last night. While the pumps were out of action, we used tankers to manage the flows.

"The pumps are now up and running and the tankers will be stood down today. We’d like to thank the crew from Winchester fire station for its help.

“We’ll be carrying out a full investigation.”