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Water firm calls for planning say to ease flood risk
YORKSHIRE Water believes the region's cities could be protected from further flooding if the company was consulted on all planning applications for new developments.
The firm's evidence submitted to a Parliamentary select committee said the regulations governing water companies need to be reviewed in light of the floods which devastated parts of Yorkshire this summer.
Planning applicants are not required by law to consult with Yorkshire Water over new developments and if the firm is approached it has no powers to monitor whether its recommendations are implemented.
The firm is also required to offer all new developments the right to connect into the public sewerage system.
Now Yorkshire Water says these regulations need to be reviewed as part of a multi-agency approach to prevent a repeat of this summer's floods.
A spokesman said: "The current planning applications situation is very mixed, with Yorkshire Water being consulted in some instances and being able to advise on whether the current sewerage infrastructure is capable of dealing with a development and in other cases the company is not consulted at all.
"Becoming statutory consultees on development control is just one idea that could help to protect cities should future weather events like the one in June occur."
Torrential rainfall in June caused widespread flooding in Yorkshire, with Hull among the worst affected areas.
The city received one sixth of its annual rainfall in just 12 hours as water overwhelmed Hull's drainage system.
The flooding affected around 20,000 victims and left the city facing a 100m clean-up bill.
An independent review board criticised Yorkshire Water for making the flooding in the city worse by failing to act on a decade of warnings about its drainage system. Hull Council said it was considering suing the utility company in light of the board's damning report.
However in its submission to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee inquiry into the floods Yorkshire Water said no system could have coped with the amount of rain which fell in June.
The water company presented evidence to MPs of how it responded to the crisis.
Sewerage and pumping systems were overwhelmed in parts of the region but Yorkshire Water says its infrastructure coped well in exceptional circumstances.
The firm had to respond to the feared collapse of the Ulley Dam after cracks were discovered on the wall of the reservoir near Rotherham.
Nearby residents were evacuated as water was pumped out of the reservoir until engineers were satisfied the structure was safe.
Yorkshire Water also switched to its own on-site electricity generation to ease the demand on the national grid in the Sheffield region and ensure that its water treatment works and pumping stations were not affected by power cuts.
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Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 26 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: East
