Lib Dem mayoral candidate promises to improve flood management to reduce sewage discharge

Felicity Cunliffe-Lister, who is standing to be the first metro mayor for York and North Yorkshire, said it was “shocking” how polluted the river Ure had become.

“As a family we have always swum in the river Ure, believing it to be safe and clean. It’s shocking to discover how polluted it has become – to find out how widespread sewage dumping is across the county - and it’s getting worse,” she said.

According to data published by Yorkshire Water a number of their monitoring systems saw increases in sewage discharge into the Ure during 2023. One site near Boroughbridge saw 143 events accounting for 2,151 hours of discharge, up from 74 events and 739 hours at the same location the year before.

Data from the Environment Agency shows every Parliamentary constituency in York and North Yorkshire saw the duration of spillage events increase by more than double in 2023 compared to 2022. Sewage was released into York and North Yorkshire’s rivers and coast on 20,000 separate occasions over 172,000 hours last year.

“My manifesto pledge is to hold Yorkshire Water to account,” said Ms Cunliffe-Lister, “and as a party the LibDems are calling for strict measures including replacing Ofwat with a tougher regulator, a ban on bonuses for water company bosses if their firms are dumping sewage into our water, and the declaration of a national environmental emergency. This is environmental vandalism and it has got to stop.”

Ms Cunliffe-Lister is committed to improving flood management for the upper catchment of the rivers Swale, Ure and Nidd. “This scheme will Slow the Flow – it holds back floodwater to reduce peak levels and releases it slowly. It improves carbon sequestration, biodiversity and agricultural yields – and in Pickering it reduced the likelihood of flooding in a year from 25% to 4%. This is working with nature not against it,” she said.

The York and North Yorkshire mayoral election is held on 2 May. The other candidates are the Conservative Keane Duncan, Greens’ Kevin Foster, independent Paul Haslam, Labour’s David Skaith, and independent Keith Tordoff.