'Yorkshire Water is flooding my drive with raw sewage' West Park man says
A West Park resident says an ongoing battle with Yorkshire Water has made his life a ‘living nightmare’, with raw sewage flooding his drive during heavy rain.
Will Savage said despite repeated complaints and engineer visits, the utility company has refused to implement a fix proposed by their own engineers.
Each time there is a flash thunderstorm or heavy rainfall, a combined sewer manhole on his drive overflows with foul water, including raw sewage.
The sewer, which collects both rain and waste water, cannot cope with modern demand from nearby extensions and increased surface water.
He told the Yorkshire Post: “It’s utterly appalling. This isn’t just inconvenience—it’s sewage flooding our property every time it rains hard.
“We are totally exhausted with this and I've started to suffer with anxiety. I'm not sleeping and waking up having panic attacks. It really is that bad.
"This is our home and we are so nervous every time it forecasts heavy rain and yet Yorkshire Water are doing nothing to help.”
He said Yorkshire Water appear to be desperate to blame someone other than themselves - either him as the land owner, or the council.
He said: “They seem fixated by the idea that it’s surface water causing the problem but it’s not. I’ve literally watched it happen and the problems only start when the sewer backs up
Mr Savage continued: “We have been to Yorkshire Water numerous times with videos, picture evidence, we phone in every time it happens, and yet they will not help.
“As the shared combined sewer falls under them, we cannot touch it, only they can - we are totally at their mercy and they will not help.
“We've had their engineers out and they all say the same thing. They even came up with a solution of adding an extra pipe into the system to take water into the main sewer in the road.
“The main sewer is council owned and even the council has said this is the solution and have granted permission to go ahead.”
A spokeswoman for Yorkshire Water said: “Our colleagues have attended this property on multiple occasions. During the first two visits, there were blockages in the network, such as stones or brick, which meant that the network did back up. We assisted with clearing the blockages and cleaning up at the time.
“On other, more recent, occasions, we have found that surface water run-off has firstly flooded the customer’s rear garden and subsequently contributed towards overloading the nearby sewer. This is during exceptional rainfall events when the sewer is already managing additional rainwater flows.
“Given the visits and the data we have available, we believe the issue that this customer is facing is related to high surface water run-off from the street above. We understand how distressing this situation must be and would advise the customer to contact the council for support."
Responding to this, Mr Savage said: “They’re just not listening. They don’t want to hear the sentence that it’s nothing to do with surface water. They just want to fob me off, but I’m not going to drop it until the issue is resolved. Why should I have to live like that in my property?”