YORKSHIRE Water is to donate £150,000 to a wildlife charity after an incident in which a York beck was repeatedly polluted with sewage.

The Environment Agency said the water company had offered an 'Enforcement Undertaking' to make amends for allowing Holgate Beck to be polluted by paying the sum to the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust.

It said Bellhouse Way Sewage Pumping Station had an environmental permit to discharge sewage into the beck in emergencies, which did not include storm conditions and heavy rain, but it breached the permit with an unauthorised sewage discharge at the start of April 2018.

"It discharged sewage intermittently due to an electrical failure in the main pump and blockage of the standby pump," said a spokesperson.

"The alarm on the pumping station was activated, but as this coincided with a period of heavy rain it was not differentiated from other assets which are allowed to discharge during storm conditions."

They said that as part of the undertaking requirements, Yorkshire Water had improved its monitoring systems so that 670 assets which were permitted to discharge in an emergency only were allocated a code to ensure they were always investigated.

They added that the wildlife trust would use the donations on environmental improvements such as its Askham Bog, River Foss and Living Went projects.

Martin Christmas, agency area environment manager, said: “We are holding water companies to account like never before and while we will always take forward prosecutions in the most serious cases, Enforcement Undertakings are an effective enforcement tool to allow companies to put things right and contribute to environmental improvements.

“They allow polluters to correct and restore the harm caused to the environment and prevent repeat incidents by improving their procedures, helping ensure future compliance with environmental requirements."

He said that as well as the donation, Yorkshire Water had made significant improvements to its monitoring system and completed repairs to its assets as part of the civil sanction.

The spokesperson said an Enforcement Undertaking was a type of civil sanction, and was a voluntary offer by an offender to put right the effects of their offending and not an admission of guilt.

"The Environment Agency may accept an Enforcement Undertaking where it has reasonable grounds to suspect that the person offering the Undertaking has committed an offence,"they said.

"We will only consider accepting an Enforcement Undertaking for cases where it is not in the public interest to prosecute; the offer itself addresses the cause and effect of the offending; or the offer protects, restores or enhances the natural capital of England."

They said the agency continued to prosecute for offences where evidence showed high levels of culpability and serious environmental harm.