A £9.7 million project to tackle sewage discharges into the River Wharfe is now underway in Addingham.
Yorkshire Water has begun work on a massive underground storage tank designed to capture millions of liters of wastewater during heavy rainfall, preventing it from spilling into the river.
The 12.5-meter-wide, 3,800m³ tank will temporarily store stormwater and sewage, releasing it back into the network once conditions allow.
The goal is to slash storm overflows upstream of Ilkley to just one per bathing season and no more than ten annually, well ahead of the government’s 2035 target.
“Recent years have seen significant investment in our networks in Ilkley to improve water quality,” said Dominic Cunney, project manager at Yorkshire Water. “We are now turning our attention to the storm overflows upstream of the existing bathing water.”
The Addingham project is part of a wider push to clean up the Wharfe, which includes a £60 million upgrade to Ilkley wastewater treatment works, a £15 million sewer under the A65 and UV treatment at multiple wastewater plants.
The work at Addingham is expected to be completed by March 2026, with further improvements coming to Bridge Lane and Middleton.
