Annual data released today indicated a shocking picture of England’s waterways. In total, there were 450,398 sewage spills in 2024, with these spills lasting for over 3.6 million hours. This national data reflects a tiny decrease of approximately 3% in the number of sewage spills compared to 2023.
Here in the Yorkshire region, the number of total spills was 68,164, with a total hour spill of 430,263 hours, with many areas individually seeing hundreds of spills. These numbers are lower than 2023, but taken by themselves speak of a shocking state of guardianship over a precious resource.
Still a long way off to stop sewage pollution
Speaking on the release of the report, the chair of the Environment Agency, Alan Lovell said:
“This year’s data shows we are still a long way off where we need to be to stop unnecessary sewage pollution. But it also provides vital intelligence that drives targeted investment. Using our Event Duration monitoring analysis, we have worked with partners to secure £10.2bn from water companies to improve storm overflows in England.
“While these improvements get underway, we expect water companies to do what customers pay them to do: ensure their existing assets are maintained and operating properly.”
Karen Shackleton, the founder member of the Ilkley Clean River Group, told Yorkshire Bylines:
“Although Ilkley now has secured investment from Yorkshire Water to reduce storm overflows and increase the quality of ‘treated’ sewage, this is only down to our campaigning and our Bathing Water Designation. Other parts of the Wharfe and indeed, rivers and coasts across the country, remain dumping grounds for tons and tons of sewage, a result of years of under investment and innovation by water companies polluting for profit.”
Shackleton explained that her group has no confidence that the resulting increases in bills across the board nationally will guarantee that this money will be used for improvements in infrastructure. They have concerns that the money will simply disappear into shareholders’ cavernous pockets.
Shackleton continued:
“Practically every water company in the country is under criminal investigation for polluting our rivers and seas and until that investigation is completed we should not be paying a penny more in our bills to these companies, until they start abiding by the law. If they are unable to fulfil their statutory duties then they should be renationalised at no further expense to the public.”
Questions raised over sewage system capacity
When compared against the other water companies, Yorkshire Water was in the top five for poor performance. Yorkshire Water did stand out for hydraulic capacity failures though with 84.4% of their spills being attributed to this cause, compared to Northumbrian Water’s 66.7% and United Utilities 62.1% as the next highest.
In contrast, 0% of Anglian Water’s spills were caused by hydraulic capacity reasons and only 0.4% of Wessex Water spills were due to hydraulic capacity reasons. Yorkshire Water has explained to Yorkshire Bylines before what ‘hydraulic capacity’ means – insufficient capacity in the sewer network. ‘Hydraulic capacity’ was defined in the report as: “If the reason for a high spilling storm overflow (over 60 times per year) is neither ‘exceptional rainfall’ nor ‘asset maintenance’ then the reason is classified under the ‘hydraulic capacity’ category. This indicates there is insufficient capacity (conveyance or storage) in the sewer network to cope with the wastewater flow plus typical rainfall entering the sewer network.”
Yorkshire Water responds
Yorkshire Water responded to this data revealed today by telling Yorkshire Bylines, that:
“Yorkshire Water reduced the number of discharges from storm overflows to the region’s watercourses by 12% in 2024 – a reduction of 9,595 discharges. As well as a reduction in the number of discharges, there was also a 17% drop in the amount of time Yorkshire Water discharged to watercourses – which equated to 86,906 hours. The average number of discharges per overflow decreased from 35.99 to 31.4.”
Nicola Shaw, CEO of Yorkshire Water, said:
“We know overflows are operating more than we, or our customers, would like, but we’re pleased to begin to show progress on reducing storm overflow activity in our region. The reductions in discharges in 2024 resulted from both a drier year than 2023 and the hard work of our teams to deliver our £180mn investment programme.
“In the past two years, Yorkshire Water has invested in 142 storm overflows across Yorkshire to reduce discharges and improve water quality in many of the region’s watercourses.”
Shaw continued:
“Changing how our combined sewers and more than 2,000 storm overflows work across the region is a difficult task, but it is one we are committed to as we continue our aim to improve Yorkshire’s river water quality and coastal bathing waters.”
Time to ban water bonuses
Recently, Ofwat has called for bonuses to water bosses to be banned for companies that spill sewage or mismanage their finances. It is clear, though, that this measure does not go far enough to save the rivers and waterways in England and Wales from being polluted time and time again. Sadly, we are in a position where we are simply annually recording the data, without any drastic action in place to protect water users.
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