Yorkshire Water has been downgraded from a two star rating to a one star rating by the Environment Agency today, now classifying the company as a ‘poor performing company.’
The Environment Agency noted that Yorkshire Water had reported ‘335 pollution incidents including 13 classed as serious, 82% of incidents were self-reported.’ Yorkshire Water was rated as a three star company in 2022 (A Good Company), but then dropped to a two star rating for 2023 and 2024 (Company requires Improvement), before finally dropping to the lowest rating of a one star in 2025.
With regards to specific pollution incidents for Yorkshire Water, there were 50 sewerage pollution incidents per 10,000km of sewer and 260 actual incidents. An increase of over 70% from the 151 incidents in 2024 and 137 incidents in 2023.
Yorkshire Water’s history of serious pollution incidents remains high this year as well, meeting the record number of category one and category two incidents.
Response from the regulator
The regulator said that its job was to ensure accountability and targeted investment. ‘People rely on water companies to provide clean, safe drinking water every day, keep services resilient during drought, and protect rivers and coastlines during heavy rain. Things can go wrong – a burst main, a pollution incident or a supply interruption. People then rightly expect swift action, honesty, accountability and targeted investment to fix the problem and prevent it happening again.’
It noted that of the 9 water companies in England, 4 water and sewerage companies were rated as poor performing (1 star) in their Environmental Performance Assessment, 4 were rated as requiring improvement (2 stars) and only 1 was rated 4 stars (our maximum rating).
It also reminded the public of the national spillages from all the water companies in England, highlighting that in 2025, the total duration in hours of monitored spills was almost 2 million hours at 1,878,240 and that the total number of monitored spills events was 292,119, almost 300,000 spills.
The regulator also highlighted the enforcement action that it has taken against Yorkshire Water in the past year. ‘We completed 2 prosecutions, both against Yorkshire Water, which led to total fines of £1,215,000 – both of the prosecutions resulted from pollution incidents.’
‘Our performance simply wasn’t good enough’
Yorkshire Water responded to the rating announcement today, with the Director of Asset Management, Stephanie Pullan, commenting, ‘The result reflects the fact that our environmental performance in 2025 simply wasn’t good enough. Nobody at Yorkshire Water is satisfied with that outcome. Protecting the environment is fundamental to what we do, which is why improving our performance is such a priority. We understand the issues behind the result, and we’ve already made significant changes to address them.’
She explained the rationale behind the rating, saying, ‘The EPA outcome is largely driven by two factors. The first is our pollution performance. During 2025, we recorded 13 serious pollution incidents. Every pollution incident matters, and reducing both the number and the impact on the environment and the communities we serve is a priority. The second factor relates to the Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP). We completed 668 environmental obligations, but five schemes in West Leeds were not delivered within the required timeframe.’
Pullan then outlined the projects and investment in place by Yorkshire Water to improve the company’s understanding of the pollution events.
‘One of the clearest lessons for me is that anticipating and preventing a problem is always better than responding to it…We’ve significantly improved our understanding of what’s happening across the wastewater network, with much better data and visibility of where risks are developing…For example, we’ve installed more than 27,000 sewer level monitors, we’re trialling 360-degree cameras and sensor devices that travel through the sewer network, and we’re using drones to assess the network from above…That’s why we’re delivering one of the biggest investment programmes in our history.’
She acknowledged however, that this ‘unseen investment’ does not go far enough to allay customers’ concerns and that a judgement by customers has already been made. ‘Customers will rightly judge us on progress, not promises.’
