‘We know there's more to do’: Yorkshire Water responds to Yorkshire Post permit breach findings

Yorkshire Water has said that it “knows there’s more to do” to improve its operations across the region, after The Yorkshire Post reported that the company had breached its Environment Agency permits over 250 times in the past two years.

Yorkshire Water said it plans to make its “largest ever” environmental investment of £7.8bn between 2025 and 2030, in a bid to improve its operations. This comes after the company said it already invested £4.5bn in new fixed assets over the last 10 years.

A spokesperson for Yorkshire Water said: “We know there's more to do to improve our performance on storm overflows and we're investing £180m by April 2025 to reduce the frequency of discharges from our most frequently operating overflows.

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“This is just the start of our investment and we have submitted plans to invest more than £1bn between 2025 and 2030 to further reduce the operations of overflows throughout the region”.

Yorkshire Water has said that it “knows there’s more to do” to improve its network across the region, after The Yorkshire Post reported that the company had breached its Environment Agency permits over 250 times in the past two years. PIC: Simon HulmeYorkshire Water has said that it “knows there’s more to do” to improve its network across the region, after The Yorkshire Post reported that the company had breached its Environment Agency permits over 250 times in the past two years. PIC: Simon Hulme
Yorkshire Water has said that it “knows there’s more to do” to improve its network across the region, after The Yorkshire Post reported that the company had breached its Environment Agency permits over 250 times in the past two years. PIC: Simon Hulme

The company said it will also invest £180m by April 2025 to reduce the frequency of discharges from storm overflows – which includes discharges into waterways.

The comments come after information released by the Environment Agency under Freedom of Information laws revealed that the company had breached its permits 259 times between June 2022 and June 2024. Yorkshire Water also received 146 warnings from the Environment Agency in this time.

The company said it could not “replicate” these figures.

A spokesperson said: “We take our responsibility for the environment seriously and invest heavily in infrastructure improvements.

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“This financial year alone almost £800m is being invested to improve our clean and waste-water networks and to ensure we deliver the service our customers expect.

Yorkshire Water said that its plans were currently going through an approval process with industry regulator Ofwat.

A spokesperson added: “We and our customers care deeply about river health and we want to provide reassurance that we have already taken considerable action to improve.

“For the past two years we have been industry leading for our waste-water treatment works compliance, we have more robust processes and procedures in place and we have finished work at 13 storm overflows with 42 on site, and 62 due to start soon as part of our £180m investment programme.”

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