Yorkshire Water hikes dividend despite pollution remaining ‘too high’

Yorkshire Water, which serves more than five million customers across the region, has hiked its dividend during the first half of its financial year despite pollution levels remaining “too high”.

The provider paid out dividends totalling £37.5m in the six months to 30 September, 2024, up from the £17.7m during the same period in 2023.

The increase comes after Yorkshire Water paid out £62.3m in dividends during its latest full financial year.

The firm pays the dividends to its parent company, Kelda Group, but the funds are not available to external shareholders.

Shareholders in the Jersey-based parent company include Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and Australia’s SAS Trustee Corporation.

Yorkshire Water’s half-year report also shows the firm’s revenue rose to £653.1m in the six months, up from the £613.2m it posted for the same period in 2023.

However, the firm’s pre-tax profit dipped from £231.8m to £205.1m.

‘Pollution numbers are still too high’ – Yorkshire Water boss

Writing in the half-year report, chief executive Nicola Shaw said: “In the first half of the year we have seen a reduction in internal and external sewage flooding incidents, as well as leakage.

“However, pollution numbers are still too high and our River Health team is working hard to tackle the causes of these incidents, including completing the measures set out in our Pollution Incident Reduction Plan.

“For those areas where we aren’t performing to the standard our regulators and customers expect, we have published a Service Commitment Plan which is available on our website and shows the actions we are taking to improve performance.

“It also outlines the timeframes in which we expect those improvements to take effect.

“We are in the process on updating our plan and currently we expect to maintain or improve performance levels across nine of our 12 target areas.

“We are committed to doing right by our customers and delivering the level of performance that they expect.”

Yorkshire Water added that it is in the process of investing almost £850m in its infrastructure across the region this year, including nearly £180m to reduce storm overflow use and improve water quality.

The provider also said that a £180m investment in discharge reduction will be completed by April 2025.