Supply

Why do we have reservoirs?

At Yorkshire Water we own and look after around 120 reservoirs, many of which were built in the 1800’s and are regularly maintained and upgraded. Our reservoirs aren’t only a source of excellent quality water, but also attract around one million recreational visitors a year. Each reservoir varies in size and have different roles to play in the water process. There are three different types of reservoirs, valley-damned, bank-side and service reservoirs.

• Valley-damned reservoirs are man-made, created by building a dam across a valley and using the natural topography of the valley to provide most of the reservoir's basin.
• Bank-side reservoirs are constructed reservoirs where water is pumped or siphoned from a river of variable quality or size.
• A service reservoir is a storage facility for fully treated drinking water that is close to where it is distributed.

Reservoirs play a huge part in the water cycle and collect billions of litres of water each day, in fact around 44% of the total water collected each day gathers in our reservoirs where it is held before going to water treatment works to be ready for us all to use.

Our new reservoir in Harton

We’re building a new £8.5 million service reservoir in Harton, between Malton and York. This new reservoir is going up near the existing water tower on Longfield Lane to boost the resilience of our drinking water network in the area while making local supplies better.

We started work on the reservoir in January 2024. Once it’s up and running, it will provide drinking water to the local community and support new developments.

The new reservoir is going to be quite something! It will be 40 meters by 60 meters, built 6 meters underground, and made to hold almost 10 million litres of clean drinking water—that’s about the same as four Olympic swimming pools.

Phoebe Ripley, our project manager for operations, shared: “This new reservoir will help to significantly increase the resilience of our water network in the area, improving supplies locally.

“We understand the area will be undergoing a lot of changes over the next few years, and we’re keen to ensure that we’re ready to cope with the demand and provide a reliable service to all our customers both now and in the future.

“We’re planning to complete this project by May 2025. We’d also like to thank customers for their continued patience while the work is being carried out.”