Dry spell to blame for series of leaks

at the closure in Wilshaw Road where “hundreds of gallons of water” were being lost.

“It’s like it’s just been abandoned,” he said. “The road closure is in place but there’s no-one working on it.

“The whole nation has been put on guard against water wastage and yet this major burst has just been left.”

Mr O’Brien said residents in the area had been affected by low water pressure in the past but their complaints had come to nothing.

Yorkshire Water said the dry conditions had caused earth movements and pipes to crack.

A spokesman said: “We take leakage extremely seriously and will spend £75m this year on preventing and fixing leaks.

“The hot, dry weather has unfortunately led to an increase in bursts due to ground conditions drying out which causes earth movements and some pipes to crack.

“In response, we have ramped up our resource and have around 150 leakage repair teams out on the streets repairing leaks as quickly as possible to help protect supplies. We’ve also set ourselves a target to reduce leakage by 40% by 2025 to conserve more water.

“To detect bursts quicker and help prevent them occurring, we’ve deployed a range of technology including thousands of acoustic loggers that control the flow of water through pipes and we have also successfully trailed the use of drones and satellites. If customers do spot a leak we would ask them to report it at yorkshirewater.com/ reportaleak.”

On Huddersfield Road he said: “We are sending a repair team to investigate. We will then carefully plan a repair job to take place as soon as possible in what is a traffic sensitive location to ensure we minimise disruption to motorists.”

On Wilshaw Road he said: “Whilst carrying out a repair to fix a leak on this water main we have identified a second leak which we are currently urgently investigating.

“We are in the process of formulating a plan to repair this second leak as soon as possible and for the time being the road remains closed. We will provide an update as soon as possible.

On the Neilly leak, he said: “We are aware of a leaking stop tap on New Mill Road and, due to safety reasons, the repair will take place this weekend with two-way traffic lights put in place. We hope to have this complete by early next week.”