Legionella risk assessment in Stoke-on-Trent

Updated 7 September 2026

Stoke-on-Trent's pottery industry, still active at firms like Emma Bridgewater and the restored Middleport Pottery, left a federation of six towns built from terraces and former potbanks, many now reused as workshops, studios, and small factories. The Royal Stoke University Hospital, run by University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust, is a major acute site, and Staffordshire University's Stoke campus supports a large student HMO sector around Shelton and Stoke. Hotels and hospitality venues around the cultural quarter and the bet365 Stadium add guest accommodation with showers and storage, and distribution parks along the M6 and A50 add welfare blocks to survey.

Local water supply

The mains water supplier for Stoke-on-Trent is Severn Trent Water (Severn Trent Water website). The mains supply is treated and controlled by the supplier, so your legionella duties begin where the water enters your premises. Anything downstream of the boundary stop tap (storage tanks, calorifiers, pipework, outlets) is your responsibility.

Water in the Stoke-on-Trent area is classed as Slightly hard to Moderately hard on the Drinking Water Inspectorate hardness scale (around 150-157 mg/l as CaCO₃), according to MyTapWater water quality data (two agreeing sources - unverified). Harder water lays down scale inside calorifiers, cylinders, and mixing valves, and scale gives legionella a foothold while blunting temperature control, so in hard-water areas descaling and inspection belong in the written scheme of control. Check your supplier's postcode water-quality checker for the figure for your exact supply zone.

Legionnaires' disease in the West Midlands

The most recent regional surveillance figures recorded 71 confirmed cases of legionellosis in the West Midlands in 2023, a rate of 1.2 per 100,000 residents.

These are the confirmed figures UKHSA states explicitly; a full region-by-region table is not published, and surveillance counts only laboratory-confirmed, reported cases, so they are a floor rather than the true total. The national picture, with the trend since 2017, is on the Legionella Data Index. The regional figure changes nothing about your own duties: whatever the count, a non-domestic water system in Stoke-on-Trent still needs a risk assessment, a control scheme, and the records to show the scheme is being followed.

Typical cost in Stoke-on-Trent

Legionella risk assessment costs in Stoke-on-Trent depend more on the water system than on the location. A rough guide:

• Small premises, mains-fed only, no storage: £150 to £250
• Typical office or shop with a hot water cylinder: £200 to £400
• Care home, hotel, or school with stored hot and cold water: £400 to £800
• Premises with a cooling tower or evaporative condenser: from £800, often much higher

Cooling towers drive the cost up because they are notifiable to the local authority under the Notification of Cooling Towers and Evaporative Condensers Regulations 1992, and they need quarterly sampling and extensive cleaning. Get a tailored estimate with our cost calculator.

Legionella enforcement in the West Midlands

Prosecutions for legionella failings are usually brought under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, whether by the HSE, a local authority, or (in Scotland) the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. No case in our tracker is recorded in Stoke-on-Trent itself; the cases below are the most recent recorded elsewhere in the West Midlands, shown as regional context rather than local history. They are drawn from our legionella enforcement tracker, which records each one against its primary source:

Riaar Plastics Limited, 2023 (Manufacturing) — fined £50k. Five people, including members of the public, contracted Legionnaires' disease near a West Bromwich plastics factory in 2020, one needing intensive care. The site's cooling towers were in extremely poor condition.

Isher Hangers (K & S Chatha), 2020 (Manufacturing). The owners of a Birmingham hanger manufacturer failed to control legionella from a cooling tower, ignoring their own consultants' warnings and having no risk assessment, on a site near two hospitals. Each received a 12-week sentence suspended for 12 months, a rare custodial legionella outcome.

The failings behind these cases are consistent: no suitable risk assessment, no written scheme of control, monitoring not carried out, or records that could not show the controls happened. The full dataset is on the enforcement tracker, and legionella fines and prosecutions explains how the courts approach sentencing.

Find a legionella risk assessor in Stoke-on-Trent

We are building a directory of qualified water hygiene assessors in Stoke-on-Trent and across the UK. In the meantime, look for assessors who:

• Work for a company registered with the Legionella Control Association (the LCA is the main UK trade body for water hygiene)
• Hold a City & Guilds or equivalent qualification in legionella risk assessment
• Can provide references from similar premises in the Stoke-on-Trent area
• Will quote against a clear scope (number of outlets, inclusion of hot and cold surveys, whether sampling is included)

Legionella testing labs covering Stoke-on-Trent

Routine temperature monitoring is done on site, but where your risk assessment or written scheme calls for water sampling, the samples go to a laboratory for culture. These UKAS-accredited laboratories cover Stoke-on-Trent and accept posted samples:

• TEST Medical (Theatre & Endoscopy Service Technicians Ltd, trading as T.E.S.T.) (UKAS no. 4522)
• Feedwater Laboratories (UKAS no. 2234), turnaround ~10 days, from £82.68 per sample
• Eurofins Water Hygiene Testing UK Limited (UKAS no. 9658)

Methods, turnaround times and published prices for the full directory are compared on the legionella testing labs page. Sampling is not a substitute for day-to-day control: a clear result records what was found at that outlet on that day, it never certifies a system as safe, and it sits alongside the routine checks in your written scheme of control, not instead of them.

Building types in Stoke-on-Trent

Different building types have specific legionella considerations. Browse the guides most relevant to Stoke-on-Trent premises:

• Landlords and rental properties
• Offices
• Care homes
• Hotels
• Schools
• Dental practices
• All building types