Yorkshire Water is starting work on one of seven storm overflow schemes in the Sheffield area, part of a £1.5bn programme to cut discharges into local watercourses.

The £2.6 million project at Butterthwaite Road in Ecclesfield will install a 460m³ underground storage tank to capture excess water during prolonged or heavy rain, adding resilience to the sewer network.

When capacity returns to normal, stored flows will be sent for treatment. On completion, the upgrade is expected to reduce spills into Blackburn Brook from the Butterthwaite Road combined sewer overflow by around 83%, to fewer than 10 per year.

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Lexie Thubron, project manager, said: "Project partners Ward & Burke will be delivering the scheme starting on site on Monday 2 February. This project is one of 92 storm discharge reduction projects across South Yorkshire over the next five years, including seven identified in Sheffield.

"We know that reducing the reducing the number of storm discharges going into local watercourses after heavy rainfall is a really important matter to our customers and Yorkshire Water is investing over £1.5bn to tackle this over the next five years. This follows a £180m investment over the previous two years, which helped reduce discharges to watercourses by 12% in 2024, compared to 2023."

Storm overflows act as a safety valve for combined sewers that carry wastewater and surface water, operating during heavy or prolonged rain to prevent sewage backing up and flooding homes and gardens.

Across Yorkshire, the company plans to lessen the need for overflows to operate by building new surface water sewers, additional underground storage, nature-based solutions, and sustainable drainage systems to slow the flow of surface water into the combined network.