Yorkshire Water is investing over £300 million this financial year throughout the region with several projects in South Yorkshire designed to improve the area’s water and waste water infrastructure.

Projects in the pipeline include a £20 million project at Langsett water treatment works, which will ensure customers in the area continue to benefit from quality drinking water.

This is addition to the ongoing £24 million scheme at Rivelin water treatment works to improve drinking water quality for over 200,000 customers in Sheffield which is anticipated to be completed in Autumn 2018.

In Barnsley, £20 million has been allocated to Lundwood sewage treatment works to improve the final effluent quality and ammonia odour levels in the River Dearne as part of an effort to improve river water quality.

The natural environment will also be protected, with a fish pass ‘super highway’ at Langsett reservoir near Stocksbridge nearing completion. This will enable trout to travel upstream to breeding grounds in the upper reaches of Little Don River deep in the Peak District. It represents the first phase of a much wider programme of work which will see a total of 14 new fish passes built across the region between now and 2020.

The water company has spent over £100 million since 2015 in South Yorkshire, not only on upgrading water treatment works, sewers and pumping stations, but also odour management, conserving moorland, reducing flood risk, and improving rivers.

The utility’s underground network of water pipes and sewers stretches for 83,000km across Yorkshire.

Significant levels of investment are required to keep the underground network operating to high standards.

The water company has just completed a £3 million project to replace a 1.5km stretch of sewer pipe in Kirkstall. The old sewer, which had burst nine times within the last five years, has now been replaced by a new, more robust pipe by contractors, Barhale.