YORKSHIRE Party councillors have expressed their dismay with the Government voting against tightening regulations against sewage being discharged into rivers

Environment spokesman Andy Walker said: “Westminster has voted to allow water companies to discharge raw sewage into our rivers and coastal systems whether it is an exceptional event or not.”

“To be precise, they voted against an amendment by the House of Lords which would have tightened regulation and required water companies to demonstrate progress. This is a massive opportunity missed and kicks the can down the road for later generations to solve.”

Yorkshire Party Leader, Cllr Bob Buxton, from Rawdon, said: “We don’t want more raw sewage in the River Aire or any river. This decision does not represent the views of people in Yorkshire. It’s yet another failure of Westminster, another good reason for Yorkshire to have more control over its own affairs. A devolved Yorkshire would do better on the environment.”

Cllr Walker added: “Yorkshire Water recorded over 420,000 hours of sewage discharged directly into waterways in 2020. They have many storm overflows but this equates to a continuous sewage discharge for 47 years. The problem is that the number of 'events' has been growing rapidly and the Lords amendment would have forced water companies to justify the business decision to 'dump' raw sewage - and just quoting ‘the cost of treating it’ would not be acceptable.”

"This vote, in the week before COP26 - which will spell-out the need to grapple with big changes - confirms that Westminster is not ready to curb really dangerous and dirty commercial practices. I understand that the cost of eliminating all spills is beyond our reach but to squander the opportunity to demand progress is unforgivable."

Yorkshire Party Deputy Leader Tim Norman said: "Updating the sewage systems is a truly massive task but discharging raw sewage into our waterways, on this scale, is completely unacceptable. The Lords amendment should have been incorporated in the Environment Bill and that would have been a vote for the future - but they ducked their responsibility."

Ilkley's MP Robbie Moore has defended voting against the amendment.

He said: "The Government has inserted a range of amendments to the Environment Bill to address the concerns I, and other MPs raised about storm overflows. I was pleased to vote in support of Amendment 45, which passed in the House of Commons by 265 votes, to 202.

"However, a section of the amendment, tabled by the Duke of Wellington was removed, and concerns have been raised about that.

"This section sought to place a new duty on sewerage undertakers in England and Wales to demonstrate progressive reductions in the harm caused by discharges of untreated sewage.

"This sounds like a good idea, and indeed is something I support in principle. However, the problem was that the Duke of Wellington’s amendment came with no plan as to how this can be delivered and no impact assessment whatsoever.

"Some might argue that a plan is not essential, that one can be formulated afterwards. I would be sympathetic to this point of view if we were talking about a simple, inexpensive endeavour. But in eliminating storm overflows, we are talking about transforming a system which has operated since the Victorian era.

"The practical problem is that across the UK there is just one system of pipes that takes both rainwater and sewerage from homes, rather than separate systems for rainwater and for sewerage. When there are storms, so much rainwater enters the sewerage system that it cannot be contained and needs to flow somewhere. Preventing the discharge of untreated sewerage during storms is a major change to infrastructure in almost every town and village in the country. Some mitigations such as storm tanks can reduce discharges but don’t usually eliminate them. We have witnessed this first hand in Ilkley.

"The preliminary cost of this national infrastructure change is estimated to be up to of £650 billion. To put this figure in perspective, £650 billion is significantly more than what has been spent combatting the Coronavirus pandemic. It would bankrupt most water companies unless consumers or taxpayers contribute. The cost work estimates out at approximately £20,000 per household.

"The Government’s view was that it would have been irresponsible on the taxpayer to have inserted this section in the Bill given that it was not backed by a detailed plan and thorough impact assessment. It would have been the equivalent of signing a blank check on behalf of billpayers."