Yorkshire Water has begun five projects across North Yorkshire to reduce the number and frequency of storm overflow discharges.
The projects, totaling a £2.2 million investment, form part of the utility’s overarching £1.5 billion programme to reduce the operation of storm overflows across the region between 2025 and 2030.
Projects in Weeton, Wass, Snape, Myton-on-Swale, and Great Barugh will see parts of the combined sewer network relined to reduce infiltration of groundwater. This will in turn reduce the amount of flow in the sewer, making storm overflow discharges less likely.
The overflow projects are the first to get underway in North Yorkshire since the announcement of the £1.5 billion programme and wider £8.3 billion investment in water and wastewater services in April 2025.
The programme follows a £180 million investment over the previous two years, which saw more than 100 storm overflows upgraded throughout the region.
Over the next few months, six additional storm overflow projects will have broken ground in North Yorkshire across: Acklam, Hebden, Malham, Sheriff Hutton, Bishop Monkton, and Skeeby.
Liam Thomas, project manager at Yorkshire Water, said:
“Our storm overflows are operating more often than we, and our customers, would like, and we’re going to be continuing our hard work into bringing the number of discharges down over the next five years. We already have a number of projects underway in Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford and Barnsley – some of which are almost finished and delivering benefits for the environment - so it’s exciting to begin to make headway in the North of the county too.”
Contract partners, United Infrastructure, are completing the projects, which will take place in phases.
Over 450 storm overflow discharge reduction projects will be delivered by 2030 – all of which are currently in planning and design or have already started on site.
Liam Thomas added:
“This is a significant and challenging programme of works, but one that’s vitally important for health of watercourses across the region, and one that we are absolutely committed to.”
Across Yorkshire, the need for storm overflows to operate will be reduced by building new:
- Surface water sewers, to separate surface water and wastewater so that wastewater networks aren’t impacted by bad weather
- Underground storage tanks, to build additional capacity into the network
- Nature-based solutions, to build additional capacity into the network
- Sustainable drainage systems, to slow the flow of surface water into the combined network
Previous storm overflow projects in North Yorkshire, as part of the £180 million investment programme between 2023 and 2025, took place in Northallerton, Brawby, Kirkbymoorside, and Langthorne, among others.
With the UK government demanding a 50% reduction in storm overflow spills by 2029, the era of reactive management is over. Speaking in the House of Commons on 21 July 2025, then environment secretary Steve Reed said, “This Government will cut water companies’ sewage pollution in half by the end of the decade.”
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