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20
Mar
Yorkshire Water to shell out £40 million for 'serious failures'
Yorkshire Water is to pay out £40 million as an enforcement package following the conclusion of Ofwat’s investigation into its wastewater treatment works and networks.
Following its probe last year into the water company's operations, Ofwat published its initial findings in August, proposing a penalty of £47 million. But since then, Yorkshire Water has worked with the regulator to put together a package to address the failures found during the investigation.
In its final decision, published today, Ofwat said that Yorkshire Water was in breach of industry regulations by "failing to operate and maintain its wastewater assets adequately, and to upgrade them where necessary".
It has also failed to routinely monitor and maintain its assets to ensure they were meeting legal requirements.
Ofwat also found that the Yorkshire Water had "systemically" breached the regulations by "failing effectually to provide drainage and deal with the contents of its sewers".
The lower amount of £40 million will not be paid for by customers, but by Yorkshire Water and its shareholders.
Where the money will go
The total package announced today includes:
- £36.6m to be invested in 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. This is in addition to the £1.5bn investment Yorkshire Water will be making in storm overflows over the next five years.
- £3.4m of support to the Great Yorkshire Rivers partnership to enable it to go beyond its target for the next five years of clearing artificial barriers in Yorkshire’s rivers, which will improve water quality and biodiversity in the area and reconnect up to 500km of rivers.
- Committing to an action plan to ensure all Yorkshire Water 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.
Water bills
In January, Yorkshire Water announced that household water bills would go up by £135 this year, saying the rise would help upgrade infrastructure. Harrogate and Knaresborough MP Tom Gordon called the hike "outrageous".
Less than a month later, Yorkshire Water chief executive Nicola Shaw defended her £371,000 bonus, despite criticism over sewage overflow failures and a downgrade in its environmental performance.
Speaking about the latest enforcement package, Ms Shaw said:
We know our storm overflows operate more frequently than we, or our customers, would like them to. Since 2021, we’ve been actively taking steps to improve our performance. We began remedying all the issues that had been identified, during Ofwat’s investigation, at our wastewater treatment works, and then took the additional decision to start our £180m investment programme to reduce discharges further.
We’ve now completed work at 70 storm overflows and we’re about to start our £1.5bn programme to reduce discharges even further over the next five years.
We know there’s still more for us to do. We’re at the forefront of the industry to get this resolved and we’re looking forward to delivering our ambitious plans to improve river health in Yorkshire. We apologise for our past mistakes and hope this redress package goes some way to show our commitment to improving the environment.
The overflows we’ll be investing in will be ones that were due to receive investment in the 2030-35 period and we’ll be accelerating improvements to them. We are pleased that Ofwat understands the importance of this money staying within our region to help fund vital environmental improvements that will have real benefits for the customers of Yorkshire.
'Enough is enough'
But Tom Gordon, MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, said the water industry was "fundamentally broken", and called on the Government to do more to address the issue.
He said:
We need immediate action from the Government to sort out the water industry once and for all. Constant fines and criticism cannot go on and on.
Whether the water industry is too far down a hole to sort itself out, or just isn’t interested in cleaning up its act, it’s abundantly clear that we need immediate action to ensure customers get what they are paying for.
How can the public have any confidence in the water industry’s ability to deliver what they are paying for, when all we see is failure after failure? We need proper action from the Government to get the industry into line once and for all. This charade cannot go on.
The water industry is fundamentally broken, and I will continue to fight to make sure that customers get what they are paying for, including by banning the absurd bonuses and dividend handouts at their expense. Enough is enough.
River projects
Great Yorkshire Rivers (GYR) is a partnership formed by Yorkshire Water, the Environment Agency and the Rivers Trust.
It is not yet known which projects the £3.4 million earmarked for GYR will be spent on, or even which rivers. The Stray Ferret has contacted the Rivers Trust to find out.
A spokesperson for the partnership said:
We welcome the additional funding that supports the vision of our partnership that aims to deliver real change within the Yorkshire landscape.
Our mission is to address all significant barriers to fish migration in Yorkshire’s rivers. This helps nature restore natural river processes, improve water quality and promote biodiversity to create better blue spaces for both nature and people.
By reinvesting this money in Yorkshire, even more projects will be delivered by Great Yorkshire Rivers partners across the county to support the recovery of our native fish species.
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