Yorkshire Water to invest almost £800m in network improvements in next 12 months

The investment follows £530m in the 2022/23 financial year and more than £750m in 2023/24.

The investment will focus on:

delivering secure, safe clean water supplies with improved resilience of Yorkshire Water’s network of pipes and a focus on future water resource needs.

supporting plans for a healthy, natural environment, with a focus on protecting and improving river and coastal water quality, to create a cleaner, safer water environment.

Richard Stuart, director of asset delivery at Yorkshire Water, said: “In Yorkshire, between 2015 and 2025, we’ll have invested over £4.7 billion into improving our infrastructure. In the next year, we’ll be spending almost £800m on our key environmental improvement plans for wastewater treatment works around the region and ensuring we provide clean, safe drinking water.

“This investment includes finishing a £180 million programme to reduce the use of storm overflows across the county, the start of a £60m investment at Ilkley wastewater treatment works to improve bathing water quality, significant investment at some of our larger water treatment works to increase resilience in the drinking water network and the continuation of our £500m programme to reduce Phosphorus entering watercourses from our treatment works throughout the region.”

The £797m spent in the next 12 months is in line with Yorkshire Water’s investment commitment during the final year of the five-year 2020-2025 business period.

The water company is already planning investment for 2025-2030 and submitted its plans to Ofwat in October outlining a £7.8bn investment that will support employment for over 10,000 people.