A drop in the ocean! One of Britain’s richest women, who has a £489million fortune, is fined just £28,000 after her estate used too much water during a drought

One of Britain’s richest women has been fined just £28,000 after her estate used the equivalent of three Olympic-sized swimming pools of water during a drought.

The Ilchester Estate in Dorset is owned by the Hon Charlotte Townshend, who is worth an eye-watering £489m according to the most recent Sunday Times Rich List.

And the estate, which spans 15,000 acres of homes, offices, water gardens and farms, used 60 per cent of its licensed water during an official drought period between December 2022 and July 2023.

In the area covered by Wessex Water, Ilchester Estate had a licence to extract 66.6 cubic metres of water per day from the River Frome in Dorset, a sensitive chalk stream.

This equates to over 12,100 cubic metres over a six month period, but the estate exceeded this amount by nearly 7,500 cubic metres.

By breaching the limits by such a vast amount, Mrs Townshend’s estate was subsequently fined a penalty of £19,777.69, plus costs of £8,298.60 to the Environment Agency in a civil sanction.

The agency had previously warned the estate to stop over-abstracting water, and a senior officer criticised them for ignoring these rules, particularly during a drought in the area.

Carolyn Lane, senior environment officer for the Environment Agency, said: ‘Chalk streams are stunningly beautiful, but ecologically sensitive, watercourses.

‘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.

‘In this case, the Ilchester Estate not only deliberately flouted the conditions, but they did also so during a drought, when it is likely that damage will have been done to the river and the surrounding environment it supports.’

In 2018 the Ilchester Estate was advised of how an increase to their permitted abstraction levels could be applied for.

Instead, the estate said steps would be taken to reduce the amount of water being taken, but amounts abstracted continued to be above the permitted level each year through to 2023.