Last week’s heavy rain and flooding in South Yorkshire and North East Derbyshire has impacted some of Yorkshire Water’s infrastructure.
In its latest update, the water company said it was continuing to manage some ongoing issues in South Yorkshire and had been working directly with customers who have been impacted by flooding.
Last Friday water company representatives supported a multi-agency visit to the area led by South Yorkshire Police.
Following the floods Yorkshire Water undertook increased activity across the region to carry out repairs and make further checks on assets including checking that manhole lids haven’t been dislodged by the flood waters.
Yorkshire Water has emphasised to customers that there is no cause for concern with the quality of drinking water. However, as a goodwill gesture as part of its response to the flooding the water company has also been providing pallets of bottled water for volunteers and displaced customers.
Despite being inundated with flood water, Yorkshire Water’s Greenroyd Pumping Station in Fishlake has continued to operate throughout, as have other pumping stations in the area.
The company also said that reports suggesting that the pumps at its Sandall sewage treatment works were not operating during the heavy rainfall were incorrect and the pumps continued to pump their normal full flows throughout the rainfall.
It was a different story at Yorkshire Water’s Mexborough treatment works which was inundated with flood water during the heavy rain - the sheer amount of flood water also overwhelmed the sewer network in the area. To help alleviate the situation the firm used tankers to reduce levels in the sewers. While levels in the sewers have been reducing Yorkshire Water said it would continue to tanker out of the network until things return to normal.
The water company also had to carry out repairs to one of its nearby sewers, describing the work as challenging due to the local ground conditions. However, Yorkshire Water said it did not believe that this was the main factor in the flooding as the sheer amount of rain overwhelmed the entire network.
At Renishaw, Derbyshire the utility visited customers impacted by flooding. Yorkshire Water said its investigations had found that the flooding was caused by the nearby watercourse being overwhelmed by the amount of water entering it from surrounding land, rather than any issues with the sewer.
Yorkshire Water commented:
“North East Derbyshire District Council, Derbyshire County Council and the EA will be working together to look at any action which can be taken to address this issue in the long term.”
More information on dealing with flooding is available on our flooding advice page.
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