In the anniversary week of the 2007 floods, Yorkshire Water is calling on the Government to give water companies a greater role in surface water management.

The plea follows the recent creation of the Floods and Water Management Act 2010, which the Government passed in response to the findings of Sir Michael Pitt’s independent review into the devastating floods in England during the summer of 2007.

The report concluded that "the current lack of clarity and transparency [on responsibility for flood defence] has the potential to put not only people’s homes, but lives in jeopardy."

Officially passed as law on 8 April, the main aim of the new Act is to improve both flood risk management and the way water resources are managed in the UK.

However, while Yorkshire Water commends the Act as a much needed and hugely welcome step forward, it feels that opportunities have been missed to give water companies even greater responsibilities to ensure that they have a complete understanding and control of their networks.

It says it is convinced that water companies would be best placed to own and manage sustainable urban drainage systems given their significant interdependence with the sewerage network. The company also feels that the missed opportunity to remove the automatic right to connect to the sewerage network will mean that water companies remain handicapped in terms of the risk of overloaded sewage.

Michelle Lewis, Manager of Political and Stakeholder Engagement at Yorkshire Water, said:

“Since the floods of 2007, we’ve played a very active role in developing water management planning and a flood emergency response in partnership with regional local authorities and with the Environment Agency in our region.

“We feel this multi-agency approach is the best way to deliver improved flood protection and management in the future and we welcome this model now being enshrined in law in the Flood and Water Management Act.

“However, real concerns are now being raised by local authorities about a lack of funding for their new responsibilities which could potentially put vital work at risk.

“That can’t be allowed to happen so we’re asking the Government to act now by giving water companies extra responsibilities around surface water management in order to maintain momentum and ensure the great progress made so far continues well into the future,” she said.

As part of the company's £1.9 billion investment across the region over the next five years, Yorkshire Water is spending over £100 million to help reduce the number of sewer flooding incidents across the region and protect its works from extreme weather.

Since 2005, the company has spent £62 million to help reduce the number of sewer flooding incidents across the region, including £2.4 million on a flood alleviation project at Muston Road, Filey - an area which historically has suffered a series of flooding incidents in the past, including the flooding of a number of properties.

To play their part in helping to reduce such incidents, Yorkshire Water has enlarged its sewer which runs under the road and created a huge underground storage tank capable of storing over 1.1million litres of waste water.