Desilt and sewer cleaning programme underway to reduce flooding hotspots

A desilt and sewer cleaning programme to reduce the number and severity of sewer flooding incidents across Yorkshire over the drier, summer has cleared almost over 239 tonnes of silt.  The equivalent of 20 double decker buses! 

Yorkshire Water is investing £1.2m every year for the next five years, in a proactive desilting and sewer maintenance programme, covering almost 460km of high-risk sewer network across the county. 

Targeting flood prone zones in Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield and York, the utility is using data analysis from Stantec to identify high-risk sewers. This proactive and preventative approach should reduce the risk of internal and external sewer flooding to customers, protecting homes, businesses and the environment. 

The project started in April 2026 and to date 405km of sewer have been inspected with underground camera technology, 239 tonnes of silt has been removed and over 1,200 blockages have been identified and removed.  

Dominic Laherty, operational programme & performance manager, at Yorkshire Water, said: “The programme and CCTV inspection plan is well underway and to date over 1810 blockages have been cleared.  As well as demonstrating strong, operational performance, it’s preventing the likelihood of repeat internal and external flooding. 

“This comprehensive desilt and sewer maintenance programme is improving network resilience. Blockages and silt restrict the flow of wastewater through the network and can lead to sewage escaping from manholes during periods of heavy flows in the network. 

“Using CCTV surveys to identify emerging defects early allows us to carry out targeted maintenance and more efficient investment decisions.  Ultimately, it helps us to deliver a more reliable service and a better experience for our customers across Yorkshire.” 

The team worked to prioritise high-risk areas of flooding with a wide range of factors, including historic performance and known problem locations as well as a future-risk prediction formula so that areas likely to give the greatest customer and environmental impact, can be tackled first. 

Work was scheduled over the drier summer months and targeted areas that are typically more challenging during the winter Activity in targeted city conurbations resulted in:   

• 32,356 metres of sewers cleared, removing 153 blockages and 7.6 tonne of silt across Bradford 
• 42,088 metres of sewers cleared, removing 362 blockages and 18.67 tonnes of silt in Leeds 
• Sheffield saw 55,258 metres of sewers cleared, removing 194 blockages and 13.89 tonnes of silt. 
• and in York, 38,579 metres of sewers cleared, removing 214 blockages and 9.70 tonnes of silt. 

The desilt programme, is one of a number of proactive measures to improve the wastewater network through with early intervention of pre-emptive maintenance which should result in fewer flooding incidents in the future.