Yorkshire Water invests £406m to renew the region’s mains network

As part of the new scheme, eight projects across this area will upgrade the system.

In the first year, the company will be laying 19,769 km of pipes in five different schemes across East Riding, and in year two it will be replacing a further 18,976km of mains in three other schemes.

In the first year alone, Yorkshire Water is investing £89m to replace 238km or 147 miles (equivalent to a return journey from Leeds to Hull) of water mains with durable, flexible plastic pipes. The second year of the programme will see 211km of mains replaced throughout Yorkshire.

Lee Boshell, capital delivery programme manager, Yorkshire Water said: “We have already identified our first two years’ worth of mains replacement and we’re working towards year three of our five-year programme. Having long term visibility of the programme of works allows us to work closely with Local Authorities, Highways and other utility providers, so that we can collaborate with them to renew mains and other services in one go.

“This is an important investment for our business and our customers and will help us to improve the performance of our clean water network to reduce leakage and supply interruptions for our customers. We know that delivering this work, which involves relaying mains under busy roads and in major towns and cities in the region, will inevitably cause disruption, but we will be doing everything we can to keep this to a minimum.

“We’re deploying trenchless techniques wherever possible to reduce disruption by tunnelling under the road in some instances to prevent the need to dig a trench across a whole street or road.

“We will be working hard to provide as much notice as possible to customers, partner organisations, stakeholders and commuters about work happening in their area and proposed timescales.”