'It's awful': Dismay over three-day sewage spill

Sewage was discharged into a Yorkshire Dales river on three consecutive days in January.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, data shows wastewater - including sewage - flowed into the River Ure, near Leyburn, for at least 62 hours, starting on 25 January.

Councillor Karin Sedgwick, who represents Leyburn on North Yorkshire Council, said: "It's awful that this has been allowed to happen and keeps happening. Yorkshire Water needs to do all it can to prevent this from occurring."

A Yorkshire Water spokesperson blamed heavy rainfall for the discharge, but said it was done in accordance with its permit. It added significant investment was planned over the next five years.

A spokesperson for the company said it had started a £180m programme of investment into storm overflows, adding it would be spending a further £1.5bn between April and 2030 - including improvements at its Leyburn works.

They added: "In this instance, the storm overflow at Leyburn wastewater treatment works discharged according to its permit and as a result of rainfall in the area.

"However, we understand that any discharge from a storm overflow is concerning for our customers and are committed to reducing them."

Toby Milbank, vice chairman of the campaign group Stop Ure Pollution, claimed many of the treatment plants along the River Ure required significant investment.

He said: "Within the Ure catchment, there are some treatment plants that overspill very regularly.

"The worst performing plant along the river is at Leyburn that over spilled untreated sewage into the river for over 3,000 hours on 213 separate days of last year.

"The issue is that within the Yorkshire Water region, there are 631 treatment plants, and the funds required to upgrade the plants have been mis-invested or paid to shareholders."

Mr Milbank added: "The infrastructure has not received the investment it requires, during a period when population growth has increased, new houses have been built, and the plants simply cannot cope with the amount of waste we produce."

Details of the discharge come as Yorkshire Water prepare to increase water and wastewater bills in the county from £467 to £607.

Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North or tell us a story you think we should be covering here.