Yorkshire Water reservoir levels rise for seventh week

Despite this increase, the reservoirs remain significantly lower than the 74.2 per cent average for this time of year.

According to Yorkshire Water, this is due to the "extremely dry weather" the region experienced over the spring and summer months.

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Dave Kaye, director of water services at Yorkshire Water, said: "Our reservoirs, groundwater sources, and rivers are in recovery following the extremely dry weather we experienced in the spring and summer.

"However, stocks are still much lower than they should be for this time of year, and we need significant increases over the autumn and winter so that we are in a strong position heading into spring 2026."

To aid the water recovery effort, Yorkshire Water is making use of the drought permits and orders it has been issued around the region to make use of more river and groundwater.

This will help reduce the demand on reservoir water and enable them to further replenish from the autumn rainfall.

Yorkshire Water has also employed an additional 10 task teams to locate and repair leaks across the region.

Mr Kaye added: "We’ve repaired over 11,000 leaks since the beginning of April this year, and we’ve been repairing those leaks an average of 36 per cent faster than usual – leakage has reduced by 34 million litres per day since the start of April."

The water company is also progressing with its £406m mains replacement scheme, having replaced 100km of water mains so far.

With further wet weather forecast, Yorkshire Water is urging customers to support reservoir recovery efforts by conserving water resources where possible.

This includes using water butts to collect rainwater and checking homes for potential leaks.

Since April, smart meter data has enabled Yorkshire Water to reach out to 2,800 households to advise that they may have a leak in their property – with repairs reducing leakage by 2.24 million litres per day.

Mr Kaye said: "Once again we’d like to thank customers for their efforts during the spring and summer, and for taking further steps to save water where they can."

The company is set to continue its smart meter roll-out over the coming months.

Despite the increase in reservoir levels, hosepipe restrictions remain in place and Yorkshire Water says these will be lifted when the reservoirs have sufficiently recovered.