Sheffield residents challenge Yorkshire water over gas cuts

Tensions boiled over at a press conference in Sheffield as residents confronted Yorkshire Water after flooding left hundreds of homes without gas for a seventh day.

Gas engineers have been working around the clock to restore supplies after a burst water main in the Stannington area left the gas network flooded on Friday.

On Wednesday Sheffield City Council declared a major incident as Northern Powergrid asked residents to stagger their use of electrical appliances to reduce the risk of power cuts.

Today, members of the media were invited to hear from Neil Dewis, of Yorkshire Water, along with representatives from gas company Cadent, Northern Powergrid and Sheffield City Council on the ongoing recovery effort.

But local residents ignored attempts to bring the conference to challenge Mr Dewis about Yorkshire Water's response.

Tim Jones said his mother was in remission from cancer and was suffering in the cold. He said: "Due to her chemotherapy her immune system has been compromised and it's a real issue and I'm terribly worried. She's a pensioner, she was born in 1944, she's worked for the NHS, she's worked in social care and this is what she gets. It's absolutely deplorable."

He accused Yorkshire Water of being more concerned with its shareholders than with residents.

Another resident said she had no response from Yorkshire Water since the incident happened.

She said: "Water that was paddling through my kitchen has made my hands sore. My daughter has been sick. You haven't taken it seriously."

Mr Dewis said he would speak to residents with concerns.

Earlier, Mr Dewis said Yorkshire Water had deployed around 50 plumbers, dig team and customer services representatives to work on the recovery effort.

Asked if Yorkshire Water would compensate affected residents, he said: "Our immediate priority at the moment is working with Cadent and getting everybody back onto gas supplies. We'll then be working with Cadent looking at compensation for customers."

Richard Sansom, the network director for Cadent, said the company had pumped around 750,000 litres of water from the gas network.

He said 400 customers had their gas supplies restored on Thursday night, but a further 1,080 customers were still without gas.

Andy Bilclough, of Northern Powergrid, said there had been a large increase in demand on electricity supplies and there had been three separate powercuts, affecting more than 100 properties.

He said: "It's very cold so we're very keen to make sure that nobody has a power cut.

"The way that customers can help us in that regard is to stagger the use of the extra equipment that they have so that when you get in from school, work get it heated up and then cook your meal. Try not to do these things in parallel at the moment."

The company has been providing food vans to help those affected.

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