After an investigation into how Yorkshire Water was managing its treatment works and wider wastewater network uncovered a number of failings, breaching the company’s legal obligations and impacting the environment and customers, an enforcement package of £40m is to be paid by the wastewater company.
Yorkshire Water has worked with regulator Ofwat to put forward a package that will address the failures the investigation has found.
To acknowledge what has gone wrong and how it will put things right, Yorkshire Water will pay £36.6m during 2025-30, to prioritise work on some of the most problematic storm overflows in environmentally sensitive areas to ensure they spill less than 20 times a year.
The company will also contribute £3.4m of support to the Great Yorkshire Rivers Partnership to enable them to go beyond their target for the next five years of clearing artificial barriers in Yorkshire rivers, which will improve water quality and biodiversity in the area and reconnect more than 500km of river.
Yorkshire Water will additionally commit to an action plan to ensure all of its storm overflows are compliant with legal requirements.
Lynn Parker, Senior Director for Enforcement at Ofwat, said: “Our investigation has found serious failures in how Yorkshire Water has operated and maintained its sewage works and networks, which has resulted in excessive spills from storm overflows. This is a significant breach and is unacceptable.
“We are pleased that Yorkshire Water has recognised this failure and is taking steps to put it right for the benefit of customers and the environment. They deserve credit for stepping up and agreeing an enforcement package with us that will help get things back on track as soon as possible. These commitments will contribute to the company delivering on its promises for cleaner rivers and seas.
“We now expect them to move at pace to correct the remaining issues our investigation has identified. We hope more companies will follow this example so that the public sees transformative change across the sector.”
The cost of the £40m enforcement package will not be passed on to Yorkshire Water’s customers in their bills – it will be paid for by the company and their shareholders.
