Yorkshire Water invests £4.3m in Rotherham to protect river Don

Yorkshire Water is investing £4.3m in a major project in the S61 area of Rotherham as part of its commitment to reduce storm overflow discharges and improve the health of local waterways.

Contract partners, Ward & Burke, are underway with work at Scrooby Street combined sewer overflow (CSO), Greasbrough, where Yorkshire Water is constructing a new 1,550m³ storm attenuation tank.

This will provide additional capacity within the sewer network during periods of intense rainfall, helping to reduce storm overflow discharges into Greasbrough Dike and ultimately the River Don.  The scheme will take up to 14 months to complete and is expected to result in an 85% reduction of storm discharges from Scrooby Street’s CSO from around 62 to fewer than 10.

Vikki Overend, project manager at Yorkshire Water, said: “This scheme is part of our wider £73.5 million programme of improvements across Rotherham's sewer network.

“The project is among 27 schemes planned across the area over the next five years. We're continuing to invest in our infrastructure across Rotherham to help reduce storm overflow discharges and improve the health of local rivers and watercourses."

The project will significant additional storage in the utility’s network, reducing the number of spills following periods of heavy rainfall. It follows two recent storm overflow projects in the Rotherham area starting, including Clifton Lord Street CSO and Treeton Mill Lane CSO.

Storm overflows are designed to act as a relief valve for the combined sewer network, which carries both wastewater and surface water, during periods of heavy or prolonged rainfall. They discharge when the system is at capacity to prevent flows backing up and flooding homes and gardens. 

Yorkshire Water is investing £1.5bn to improve storm overflows and reduce the need for storm overflows to operate by building new: 

Surface water sewers, to separate surface water and wastewater so that wastewater networks aren’t impacted by bad weather 

Underground storage tanks, to build additional capacity into the network 

Nature-based solutions, to build additional capacity into the network 

Sustainable drainage systems, to slow the flow of surface water into the combined network 

The storm overflow project is part of Yorkshire Water’s £8.3bn investment to improve infrastructure, services and the environment across the region over the next five years.