Yorkshire Water: £20k compensation for angling club over sewage leak

Hundreds of fish were killed after sewage leaked into Walton Colliery Nature Park

A water firm has agreed to pay an angling club £20,000 in compensation after a pipe burst, spilling raw sewage into a lake killing hundreds of fish.

The pipe maintained by Yorkshire Water ruptured in October 2013, allowing raw effluent to seep into Walton Colliery Nature Park, near Wakefield.

Yorkshire Water was prosecuted by the Environment Agency and fined £600,000 at Leeds Crown Court in 2016.

It has now paid compensation to Walton Angling Club, which stocked the lake.

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The sewage had leaked into Drain Beck, which feeds a fishing lake in Walton Park that runs into the Barnsley Canal.

A compensation claim was made by Fish Legal on behalf of Walton Angling Club, and was paid by the water firm before court proceedings were issued.

Club secretary Les Gray said: "It has been a long saga to get some kind of justice for the club for the five-year loss of one of our best waters.

"This was complicated by the unsuccessful restocking attempt by Yorkshire Water before the lake had sufficiently recovered from the 2013 sewage spill."

A Yorkshire Water spokesperson said: "Protecting the environment is a priority for us which is why we are deeply sorry about the incident at Shay Lane in Walton in October 2013.

"Following the incident we invested over £1m to replace the pipe which burst and caused the incident to occur."