Yorkshire Water has completed a £15.9m investment to improve river water quality by upgrading five wastewater treatment works across the east of the region.
The improvement works have resulted in a 70% average reduction in the amount of phosphorus released back into the environment.
The investment at each site and subsequent reductions are:
- £2.9m Watton WWTW (76% drop – 4.34 mg/l to 1.04 mg/l)
- £3.6m Cherry Burton WWTW (82% drop – 6.76 mg/l to 1.25 mg/l)
- £2.9m Leconfield WWTW (83% drop – 4.68 mg/l to 0.81 mg/l)
- £3.1m Easington WWTW (62% drop – 7.1 mg/l to 2.69 mg/l)
- £3.4m Leven WWTW (56% drop – 6.36 mg/l to 2.78 mg/l)
The works included installing new mechanical, electrical, instrumentation, control and automation (MEICA) systems, ferric dosing kiosks, ferric storage tank kiosks, and chemicals off-loading areas.
Andy Clarke, lead project manager at Yorkshire Water said: “Phosphorus levels in the treated wastewater returned to the environment each of the five sites are below the levels set by the Environment Agency.
“We have committed over £350m to reduce the levels of phosphorus going into watercourses at 85 of our wastewater treatment sites across the region as part of our Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP) in the next five years, continuing the £500m investment we completed at many of our sites over the last five years.”
Contract partners were Ward & Burke.
The water company also recently began its first storm overflow project in York as part of a £1.5bn wider programme of investment by April 2030.
The £870,000 project at York Landing Lane combined sewer overflow (CSO) includes replacing the existing storm overflow chamber with a larger one, and the installation of screens to reduce the likelihood of sewer debris entering the river during a discharge.
Once completed, the project will reduce discharges to the River Ouse from York Landing Lane CSO by 49%.
Additional capacity will allow more excess wastewater to be held back during periods of bad weather, preventing discharge. Flows will be sent for treatment when capacity in the network has returned to normal levels.
Yorkshire Water is currently planning several further storm overflow projects in the York area.
The £1.5bn investment, which will see improvements at over 450 overflows, follows a £180m investment over the previous two years that helped reduce discharges to watercourses by 12% in 2024 from 2023, and by a further 24.5% in 2025.
Whilst York Landing Lane marks the first scheme in York, there are already many schemes taking place in Leeds, Bradford, Calderdale, Sheffield, Barnsley, and across North Yorkshire.
Across Yorkshire, the need for operational storm overflows will be reduced by building:
- 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.
The project is part of an overall £8.3bn investment by Yorkshire Water over the next five years.
