Thousands of gallons of water ‘wasted’ after five day leak on Sheffield street - Yorkshire Water respond
Thousands of gallons of water ‘wasted
A Sheffield resident has hit out at Yorkshire Water over a five day water leak on their street.
A frustrated Chapeltown resident has criticised the firm, claiming a water leak on Wharfedale Drive has gone unrepaired for nearly a week, creating “a river” flowing down their street.
The resident, who asked to remain anonymous, said some work was carried out by the water firm on Friday but when workmen left the leak was discovered, continued over the weekend and is still an issue today.
The resident claimed they contacted Yorkshire Water on Sunday morning and were told the issue would be escalated.
While workers later attended the site, the resident said they only remained for around an hour before leaving, with water continuing to pour down the road.
Today, the resident said: “It’s disgusting in this day and age, especially when people are being asked to be careful with water during the recent heatwaves.
“I think there must have been thousands of gallons of water pouring down the road. There is literally a river running along the street, which is especially ridiculous in such dry weather.”
They said they contacted Yorkshire Water again yesterday after the leak had still not been repaired.
“I was told it should have been sorted yesterday, but it wasn’t,” they said.
“The longer they’ve left it, the more work it was always going to take to fix.”
The resident added that the road and pavement remained dug up following the initial works, causing disruption for local people.
Workers returned to the site at around 1pm today to continue repairs, which are expected to be completed today.
A Yorkshire Water spokesperson said: “We were made aware of the leak on Friday afternoon and it was scheduled as a repair to our contract partners M Group on Friday afternoon, who subsequently set about all of the required permits, health & safety assessments and reconnaissance to be able to schedule in the and successfully complete the repair.
“They attended the site overnight on Saturday but could not start a repair at that time as it was in a domestic street and the neighbourhood was asleep. They returned to site at 8.45am on Sunday morning and were asked to pause the repair, until one of the residents whose van was parked in their drive, adjacent to the site of the repair, could move it, later the same day, when they returned from holiday. Our contractors obliged the customer and subsequently moved on to the next repair and rescheduled this burst on the next available slot and after the customers was able to move their work van.
“We understand that leaks are frustrating for our customers, and reducing leakage on our networks is a priority for us. Leakage is the lowest it has ever been in Yorkshire, and it’s something that we work on all year round. We’ve reduced leakage by 15 per cent over the last five years and will be spending £38m over the next five years to continue bringing that number down. We’re also working on a £406m scheme to replace more than 1,000km of pipework to make burst and leaks less likely as well as investing in AI predictive models to try to reduce the likelihood of leakage events before they happen. We have our leakage teams working around the clock 24/7 detecting leaks overnight and despatching repair teams to fix them as quickly as they can.”