Stannington incident: Yorkshire Water accused of 'not taking seriously' burst main which left 2,000 people in Sheffield without gas

Yorkshire Water’s director of water, Neil Dewis, was confronted by an angry resident as he joined other agencies’ representatives for a press conference in the Stannington area of Sheffield on Thursday afternoon.

Lyndsey Hudson said she found her house flooding at the weekend after a main burst, forcing huge amounts of water into the gas network.

Since the weekend, more than 200 engineers from distribution company Cadent have been working to restore gas to almost 2,000 homes which lost their supply as temperatures plummeted.

Mrs Hudson told Mr Dewis that Cadent and the other agencies involved had provided “brilliant” help but Yorkshire Water had not listened to her pleas.

She said: “They have not been on the ground and they have not listened.

“Cadent have been brilliant. Northern Powergrid have been amazing on our road. But nobody from Yorkshire Water.”

She added: “You haven’t taken it seriously.”

Mr Dewis apologised and asked for Mrs Hudson’s details.

He was asked by reporters about residents’ complaints that there have been nine or 10 recent water main bursts in the area, which they feared was due to lack of investment in the system.

Mr Dewis said the main that burst, affecting the gas system, was an asbestos-cement main from 1970. He added that the firm has invested £15 million in Sheffield to reduce leaks.

He said the reason for the burst and how it came to affect the gas main is still under investigation.

He told the press conference: “Our immediate priority is to support Cadent in getting everybody back on to gas supplies.

“We’ll then be working with Cadent on looking at the compensation for customers and any loss adjustment that needs to be made.

“The priority is getting customers on and to support the efforts that are going on the ground at the moment.

“It’s important to just get people back on.”

Richard Sansom, Cadent’s network director for East Midlands, said 1,080 customers still have no gas, though almost 700 have been reconnected during the week.

He said he is confident around 1,000 homes in the Stannington area will be reconnected by the weekend.

But he said the firm is still extracting a large amount of water from the network in the Malin Bridge and Hillsborough areas, and a small number of affected households in those parts of the city may not be reconnected as quickly.