Sewage: UK 'back to Victorian times' as raw waste spills onto streets in Yorkshire for 'third month running'

Raw sewage is “flowing down the streets” in East Yorkshire “for the third month” in a row and it is “worse than ever”. Paul Jennings, a river activist, explained on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that raw waste is still spilling onto streets in Kilham “despite efforts” from Yorkshire Water.

He posted on X: “This Kilham East Yorkshire despite your efforts ⁦@YorkshireWater⁩ sewage is still flowing down the streets as we enter the 3rd month of continuous discharge. This is worse than ever.”

Mr Jennings attached a photo to the post which shows visible toilet paper strewn across a street in Kilham as well as murky brown water seeping out of a manhole cover. At the end of January he told NationalWorld that the spills had been happening since “early December” and demanded Yorkshire Water “apologise for the inconvenience” as it has been “distressing” and “creates a health hazard for residents and pets, especially dogs being walked”.

The 66-year-old said that the water firm “initially repeatedly denied it was sewage and that it was not their responsibility to fix it”, adding that sewage is overflowing because a “high level of groundwater is being experienced”. Groundwater levels have been high this winter after an extremely wet autumn and it has caused sewage works to fail and raw waste to overflow into UK rivers. 

The water industry has been criticised for allowing this to happen. Karen Shackleton, founder of campaign ground Ilkley Clean River group said: “Groundwater is not a legal excuse to dump sewage.”

Responding to Mr Jennings’ tweet of sewage spills continuing in Kilham, users said it is not only a “road hazard” but a “health hazard” too. One user wrote: “We are back to Victorian times. Disgraceful in a so-called civilised country.” Another user said: “Easy to see why some of us in Yorkshire aren't paying Yorkshire Water to treat sewage as they ain't treating it.”

Yorkshire Water told NationalWorld it is “continuing to support customers” while it deals with “extremely high levels of groundwater infiltration into the sewer network.” The firm added: “We are now using tankers to remove flows from the network to reduce the number of incidents of wastewater escaping the network. We're carrying out clean-ups as quickly as possible and are helping customers impacted by the issues.”