{"id":55241,"date":"2025-03-27T11:52:20","date_gmt":"2025-03-27T11:52:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/?p=55241"},"modified":"2025-03-27T11:52:21","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T11:52:21","slug":"yorkshire-water-sewage-spillage-decrease-is-still-a-long-way-off-tackling-pollution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/2025\/03\/27\/yorkshire-water-sewage-spillage-decrease-is-still-a-long-way-off-tackling-pollution\/","title":{"rendered":"Yorkshire Water sewage spillage decrease is still ‘a long way off’ tackling pollution"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yorkshire Water has decreased its sewage spills in 2024 as part of its efforts to improve infrastructure and prevent flooding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The data for 2024 shows only a 2.9% decrease<\/a> in the number of sewage spills compared to 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chair of Environment Agency, Alan Lovell, said: \u201cThis year\u2019s data shows we are still a long way off where we need to be to stop unnecessary sewage pollution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This isn\u2019t their first attempt to improve Sheffield\u2019s water quality. Despite a 2020-2025 plan, they faced significant failures and yet bills are set to increase by 28.9%.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

An investigation by regulator Ofwat found that Yorkshire water left untreated wastewater into the region\u2019s rivers for an average of seven hours per day in 2023, <\/a>during their first scheme.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has led to Yorkshire Water having to pay \u00a340 million<\/a> to restore the rivers further and begin its action plan for 2025-2030. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yorkshire Water said: \u201cOur environmental performance has not matched our, or our customer’s expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The River Don is Sheffield’s largest river spanning 70 miles, and has been negatively affected by the sewage overflows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yorkshire Water have invested \u00a31.4 million<\/a> to tackle this issue of frequent storm discharges flowing into the river Don and aim to reduce it by 48%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A spokesperson for the Don Catchment River Trust have said: \u201cUnfortunately sewage is discharged into the rivers in the Don & Rother catchment on a regular basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSewage in our rivers primarily results from a combination of outdated infrastructure, an increase in extreme rainfall events, and overflows from combined sewer systems.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This can have major environmental concerns for the river\u2019s biodiversity, untreated sewage introduces excess nutrients like nitrates and phosphates, which can disrupt the ecosystem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Don Catchment River Trust said: \u201cHigh levels of nutrients can cause excessive growth of algae and plants and these smother watercourses and can deplete oxygen levels in river water, making it less likely to provide a healthy home for plants and animals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yorkshire Water is investing \u00a38.2bn over the next five years to enhance its services, aiming for long-term improvements by reinforcing infrastructure, reducing storm overflows and improve its services. It is their biggest investment plan in over 20 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yorkshire Water said: \u201cIt\u2019s necessary to ensure that our water and wastewater services continue to meet high standards and address environmental concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yorkshire Water has decreased its sewage spills in 2024 as part of its efforts to improve infrastructure and prevent flooding. The data for 2024 shows only a 2.9% decrease in the number of sewage spills compared to 2023. The chair of Environment Agency, Alan Lovell, said: \u201cThis year\u2019s data shows we are still a long […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":160,"featured_media":55255,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[154,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment-2","category-news","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55241"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55285,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55241\/revisions\/55285"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}