WATER industry regulation teams have carried out inspections at pollution-hit Barnsley watercourses in an effort to drive improvements.

Probes of wastewater assets, such as sewage treatment works and storm tanks, are up 110 per cent from last year and have already been successful in uncovering breaches in Yorkshire Water’s permit conditions.

Newly-formed Environment Agency teams, recruited over the past two years, have been inspecting sites across the region.

The checks are there to prevent pollution by ensuring that water companies are operating as they should and within their permits, and set out actions they must take if they are not.

According to the results, 88 per cent of the sites investigated were found to be compliant with their permits.

Jacqui Tootill, regulation manager, said: “Yorkshire Water was classified as a two-star performing company in our last environmental performance assessment.

“Our new water industry regulation teams have been working tirelessly with existing teams, completing a record number of inspections, to identify where they need to improve and hold them to account.

“We are already seeing the benefits of this.

“Water companies need to be operating and maintaining their infrastructure in a way that protects the environment.

“We want to see a culture where issues are identified and rectified before they cause damage to our rivers and seas.”

It comes after Yorkshire Water’s Ingbirchworth water treatment works illegally discharged chlorinated water into the watercourse, which connects Ingbirchworth and Scout Dike reservoirs.

Approximately one million litres per day of chlorinated water was discharged - which even at low levels of chlorine is toxic - resulting in over 430 dead fish being found in one day.

It provides 90,000 people in Barnsley and South Yorkshire with drinking water every day and is fed by Ingbirchworth and Royd Moor reservoirs.

Yorkshire Water was fined £865,000, ordered to pay costs of £34,979.79 and a victim surcharge of £170.

Helen Wakeham, the Environment Agency’s director for water, added: “In our role as regulators of the water industry, we are changing how we operate with better data, our largest-ever enforcement workforce and greater powers to do our job effectively.

“Inspections are a vital preventative measure, with our teams nationally issuing over 3,000 actions to water companies, including repairing sewage works and upgrading their infrastructure.

“Together, this will drive meaningful improvements in performance, hold persistent offenders to account and ultimately create a cleaner water environment.

“Even minor breaches in permits must be actioned by water companies to ensure operations are compliant with permit conditions.

“More serious breaches, where there is found to be a higher potential for pollution, can be referred for further investigation which could lead to prosecution or other enforcement action.

“One initiative resulting from the team’s inspection work has been for Yorkshire Water to focus on improving the performance of the smaller rural sewage treatment works, looking at asset condition and outfall inspections.

“The team will be using the intelligence they have gathered this past year to direct their inspections.”

Barnsley North MP Dan Jarvis welcomed the move.

He said: “Over the years I’ve been contacted by hundreds of constituents angry about the fact that so many waterways in our borough and country were regularly filled with toxic sewage under the previous Conservative government.

“In fact, when Labour took office, we inherited record levels of illegal sewage in our rivers, lakes, and seas.

“Since we were elected, we’ve overseen a 400 per cent increase in the number of water inspections being carried out.

“In the same period, we’ve overseen a 145 per cent increase in criminal investigations against water companies, with 81 investigations.”