Million of litres of raw sewage were 'illegally pumped' into a Lake District beauty spot after a fault, according to new documents.

As one of England's largest and most popular natural attractions, Lake Windermere, based in Cumbria, is part of a Unesco World Heritage site.

However, according to files obtained by the BBC, it has been revealed that United Utilities failed to stop the illegal pollution of Windermere for 10 hours despite the firm saying it took 'urgent' steps to resolve the incident.

The firm also failed to report the incident to the Environment Agency until 13 hours after it started. It is said that a nearly identical incident took place in the same location in 2022. 

A telecoms fault on the night of February 28 caused the main pumping station at Bowness-on-Windermere, which normally sends sewage to Windermere Wastewater Treatment Works, to stop.

Million of litres of raw sewage were 'illegally pumped' into Lake Windermere (pictured), according to new documents

A telecoms fault caused raw untreated sewage to flow into the Lake District beauty spot

A separate set of emergency pumps then discharged untreated sewage into one of England's most famous lakes from 23.34 GMT until 09.49 GMT the following day, the publication reports. 

In April, Steve Coogan joined protestors in demanding that United Utilities stop dumping sewage in the iconic Lake Windermere.

READ MORE: Steve Coogan demands United Utilities clear up Lake Windermere as he joins protest calling for water firm to stop dumping untreated sewage into beauty spot

Speaking to Good Morning Britain, Coogan called the situation a 'timebomb' and said: 'United Utilities have a big fancy PR machine and they put nice fancy offices up like this to say 'we're working together with the people of Windermere'.

'But it's all a smokescreen to distract attention from what they've been doing over the last 30 years, which is putting treated and untreated sewage into Lake Windermere.

'It's to such an extent that there are toxic levels of algae, there are algae blooms that show the nitrate levels are like through the roof.

'They've been doing this year on year. They're doing it legally and we have evidence they're legally putting sewage into the lake. They've been paying record dividends to shareholders, there's no excuse for this.

'We're telling them to stop putting sewage in the lake and take out what they've put in. It is possible. They've said they'll pass the bill for that operation onto the bill payers.

'They shouldn't be able to do that, they should take it from the huge profits they've made and just deny their shareholders a dividend for a few years and put that money into infrastructure to clean up the lake.'

Alan Partridge star Steve Coogan has previously demanded that United Utilities stop a 'timebomb' by dumping sewage and called on them to clear up iconic Lake Windermere

United Utilities was revealed to be the worst water firm for sewage spills last year, partly due to it's large number of storm overflow outlets. 

Protests centred on the revelation of data showing that the company dumped more than 27,000 hours worth of untreated sewage since 2020 - which is the equivalent of just over three years.

Comedians have previously rallied in support of the Save Windermere campaign, including Lee Mack and Paul Whitehouse.

A United Utilities spokesperson said: 'This incident was caused by an unexpected fault on the third party telecoms cable network in the area, which United Utilities was not notified about and which affected both the primary system and United Utilities' backup. 

'As soon as we discovered this fault was affecting the Glebe Road pumping station, our engineers took urgent steps to resolve the situation and we informed the Environment Agency within an hour of the pollution being confirmed.'