At Morrison Water Services, we have been working with our client, Yorkshire Water, to install water butts for customers across the region, as part of its Storm Spill Reduction Programme.

The trial has seen our team install over 1,100 slow draining water butts across Yorkshire. This will help local communities manage heavy rainfall and reduce storm overflows, whilst also allowing residents to use collected water for their gardens or washing the car.

After identifying areas that experience network issues during periods of heavy rainfall, we worked alongside the Yorkshire Water Customer Liaison Team to inform residents of the scheme. Once approved by residents, our teams worked to install water butts helping take the pressure off the network throughout these periods.

Each water butt can hold two cubic meters of stormwater and has a small diameter drain halfway up, which allows the top half of the water to flow slowly back onto Yorkshire Water’s sewer water after the peak of a storm. This allows half the water butt capacity to be ready for the next time it rains.

The remaining water can be used by the residents for personal use. Since a water butt collects rainwater that can be reused, the amount coming from people’s mains supply is reduced, conserving water and cutting the cost of bills at the same time.

Lee Schofield, Project Manager at Morrison Water Services, said: “Getting people to sign up for a water butt in December wasn’t easy, with a slow uptake at the beginning. Once the warmer months arrived the interest certainly increased as residents realised the benefits of free water to use in their gardens. I’m confident we will reach our target by the end of the contract and the residents of Yorkshire will get years of use from their water butts.”

The team are currently fitting approximately 70 water butts per week, utilising our plumbers from metering work to help fit the water butts.

The project team are looking to deliver the full scheme of 2,000 butts by the end of 2024. We hope that by continuing this project throughout the spring and summer months, when customers spend more time in their gardens, will increase sign-up rates.

Across M Group Services, we are passionate about working with our clients to find solutions to protect the communities in which we work, in line with our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) commitments.