Hosepipe ban frustration as leaks continue

"It's literally going out of that hole and straight into a drain," said Neela Patel.

The business owner said water has been pouring along Greasbrough Road, in Rotherham, for two weeks.

"They've put a few cones up but I've not seen much work done so we're not sure what's going on.

"We just want it resolved, they've put a hosepipe ban on and it's just flowing out of there."

Fellow shop owner John Smallwood said everyone in the area had reported it, calling it "ridiculous" to impose restrictions on customers while water was being wasted in this way.

"They came and stopped the traffic, caused a lot of havoc and not been back," he said.

"It's just a tonne of water going down the drain."

The hosepipe ban applies to customers across much of Yorkshire, parts of North Lincolnshire and parts of Derbyshire.

It prohibits the use of a hosepipe for activities such as watering the garden, washing the car or filling a paddling pool. Anyone flouting the restriction could be fined up to £1,000.

Dean Majors, a massage therapist from Skipton, North Yorkshire, said he had reported a leak outside his home on Canal Street at the end of June.

He said water had been pooling outside his house, with some passing down a drain and through an overflow pipe into the nearby canal.

"It just got worse and worse and every time any traffic came through, water just splashed down the overflow."

Mr Majors also reported a leak outside his business, The Backcave, last May, with the residual water so deep that he floated rubber ducks on it.

He said the leak outside his home was fixed on Thursday, joking that the company had remembered his duck stunt.

Carol Lilleker, from Laughton-en-le-Morthen, near Dinnington in South Yorkshire, said water has been leaking from beneath a manhole cover in the village since 27 June.

She said despite several calls to Yorkshire Water it has not been repaired and "thousands of gallons of water" must have been lost.

"We reported it. Our neighbours across the road reported it. The school's reported it. Several other people have reported it," she said.

"We're going to have a hosepipe ban on Friday, which is understandable - we can understand the reasons why that's going to happen - but it's a bit much when thousands and thousands of gallons of water are flowing past our houses and nobody seems to be doing anything."

In West Yorkshire, Kevin Baker said he had noticed a significant leak on Green Hill Road, in Armley, Leeds, six weeks ago.

"They came along, put traffic lights on, dug a hole, scratched their heads and went away and it's been pouring out ever since."

He said having passed it on Thursday he noticed a digger was there and hoped that meant it was finally being dealt with.

Having had a leak at his homes that Yorkshire Water charged him for, he said it was incredibly frustrating.

"It just felt like no action was taken on top of the frustration that they can charge me an exorbitant amount of money for what was a very small leak on my system."

Yorkshire Water said it understood how "frustrating leaks are" for its customers.

"Leakage is the lowest it has ever been in Yorkshire, and it's something that we work on all year round," a spokesperson said.

"We reduced leakage by 15% over the last five years, and will be spending £38m over the next five years to continue bringing the number of leaks down."

It said it had dedicated more resources to reducing leaks and had recruited 100 extra leakage inspectors to "help us find and fix leaks faster".

It said its team fix on average 334 leaks every week and prioritise those losing the most water.