A WATER company has been fined £7,000 for allowing about 20,000 litres of oil to escape into the ground.

The leak happened last March at Southern Water’s wastewater treatment plant at Aylesford.

The diesel oil used to fuel boilers on the site leaked from a storage tank through a faulty pipe which had not been properly installed by contractors.

A gauge on the tank was also found to be faulty and was still reading half full when the tank was in fact empty.

The leak was only discovered by Southern Water when one of the boilers stopped working because of a lack of oil and staff found the tank empty.

It was reported to the Environment Agency and specialist contractors employed by Southern Water have been working to remove the oil from the surrounding area.

The pipe has now been replaced with an over ground pipe and the company has spent more than £160,000 cleaning up the area.

Although the oil leaked into the ground around the tank, neither the River Medway nor the water system was affected.

Southern Water’s regional wastewater manager Nev James said: "We very much regret this incident and took action immediately to trace the cause of the problem, repair the leak and recover oil from the ground.

"Southern Water has liased with the Environment Agency throughout and kept them informed and involved in the recovery process."

Southern Water was was also ordered to pay costs of £4,780 after pleading guilty to the offence of polluting controlled waters at Maidstone magistrates court.