Yorkshire Water among England's worst for sewage spills after 51,000 discharges in a year
Yorkshire Water recorded enough sewage spills in 2025 to average one discharge every 10 minutes, with wastewater released for a combined total of more than 32 years.
Yorkshire Water released sewage from storm overflows 51,431 times in 2025, making it one of the worst-performing water companies in England, new figures from House of Commons Library show.
The company discharged sewage for a combined 285,931 hours during the year – the equivalent of more than 32 years.
The figures come after The Star recently reported on a sewage spill in a stream running through a Greenhill park, with residents raising fears about the impact on wildlife, pets and children playing in the area.
Just a few weeks before, a sewage dump was also recorded 48 hours before the Endcliffe Park duck race, where kids were paddling in the river.
A Sheffield mum-of-three also shared her story with The Star, after a surge of sewage flooded her newly renovated garden, leaving it unsafe for her young children to use.
The Environment Agency have warned that serious pollution incidents by water companies remain "unacceptable".
The regulator said the number of serious incidents across England rose to 71 in 2024, the highest level since 2013, and that it expects the figure to "trend towards zero".
Yorkshire Water was named alongside Southern Water and Thames Water as being responsible for most serious pollution incidents.
The Environment Agency also said Yorkshire Water was one of four companies performing significantly below target.
However, Yorkshire Water said the figures represented a significant improvement on the previous year, with storm overflow discharges falling by almost a quarter from 68,164 in 2024 to 51,404 in 2025.
The company said the duration of discharges also fell by 33.7%, from 430,263 hours to 285,230 hours.
The data shows Yorkshire Water's sewage spill total was the second highest of any water company in England, behind only United Utilities in the North West, which recorded 60,843 spills.
Yorkshire Water's 51,431 spills were far higher than those recorded by several other major companies, including Severn Trent (36,471), Northumbrian Water (27,776) and Thames Water (9,189).
The figures mean Yorkshire Water recorded around 141 sewage spills every day on average throughout 2025.
Across Yorkshire and the Humber, there were 53,013 sewage spills in total, making it the second worst region in England for sewage discharges.
Only the North West recorded more, with 58,409 spills.
However, Yorkshire Water said direct comparisons between companies can be misleading because it operates more than 2,000 storm overflows across the region – one of the largest networks in the country.
The company said the average number of discharges per overflow fell from 31.4 in 2024 to 23.6 in 2025.
Storm overflows are designed to release excess wastewater during periods of heavy rainfall to stop sewage backing up into homes and streets.
However, environmental campaigners have repeatedly raised concerns about how often they are being used.
The Yorkshire Water figures form part of a wider national picture showing private water companies discharged sewage into rivers, streams and coastal waters across England and Wales more than 383,000 times during 2025.
The figures have reignited debate over the regulation of the water industry.
Earlier this year, the Government announced plans to scrap Ofwat and replace it with a new regulator.
The issue is set to be discussed at the GMB union's annual conference in Blackpool, where delegates are calling for workers to have a permanent seat on the board of the new regulator.
Water campaigner and former Undertones frontman Feargal Sharkey said at the conference:
“The brutal reality is as employees, bill payers, as customers, we have been lied to, we’ve been misled, we’re being extorted, we’ve been cheated.
“For 37 years, we’ve been subjected to nothing more than the greatest act of organised criminality perpetrated against the British people.
“We’ve had little in return apart from corporate greed, profiteering, financial engineering, political failure and regulatory incompetence.
“In short, we’ve been had.
“In reality, this Thatcherite theme park has delivered nothing but pain, sorrow and anger.”
Yorkshire Water said a £180m programme targeting more than 100 storm overflows had contributed to the reduction in discharges and that it plans to invest a further £1.5bn by 2030 to improve more than 450 storm overflows across Yorkshire.