Yorkshire Water to donate £235,000 to Yorkshire Wildlife Trust following unauthorised sewage pollution in Harrogate

The company breached its environmental permit with an unauthorised sewage discharge from Stray Road combined sewer overflow, which polluted Hookstone Beck.

It submitted an Enforcement Undertaking to the Environment Agency, which has now been accepted.

An Enforcement Undertaking is a voluntary offer made by companies and individuals to make amends for their offending, and usually includes a donation to a wildlife charity to carry out environmental improvements in the local area.

Stray Road combined sewer overflow has an environmental permit which allows a discharge into the beck when the storm sewage facility is fully utilised due to rainfall or snow melt.

On August 27, 2015, it discharged illegally during dry weather and sewage fungus was evident on the bed of Hookstone Beck.

As part of the Enforcement Undertaking requirements, Yorkshire Water has upgraded its telemetry to allow continuous monitoring of the storm overflow at this site.

Claire Barrow, Environment Agency Area environment manager, said: “Sewage pollution can be devastating to human health, local biodiversity and our environment.

"Storm overflows must only be used under strict permitted conditions that control their environmental impact.

“We are holding the water industry to account like never before and while we will always take forward prosecutions in the most serious cases, Enforcement Undertakings are an effective enforcement tool to allow companies to put things right and contribute to environmental improvements.”

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust will use the donations on environmental improvements such as native crayfish work in North Yorkshire and reed bed management at Ripon City Wetlands.

A Yorkshire Water spokesperson said: “We have made significant improvements in our operations since this incident in 2015, including installing telemetry across 98 per cent of our CSOs with the remaining CSOs to be monitored by the end of this year.

"This helps to monitor our network and identify incidents of this nature so they can be corrected quickly.

“When things go wrong, we understand we have a responsibility to make it right.

"As a result, we have donated £235,000 to the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, money which will be spent in North Yorkshire to continue to provide excellent land for the people and wildlife of Yorkshire to enjoy.”

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