“Ilkley Town Meeting last night heard the welcome news from Yorkshire Water that rather than wait 5 years to investigate the solutions for Ilkley, they will start this year and then move to implementation directly”. “We heard Richard Emmott, Director of Corporate Affairs say”:-

“It would be daft for us not to investigate”. “Rivers are changing and we need to respond.” “There is a will to get it done.”

Richard said it would take a couple of weeks to firm up their position. The ICRG have written to Richard for a timeframe and clarity about what they will do. See the video from the meeting.

In the meantime Yorkshire Water have issued this statement:- “We continue to have positive discussions with the Ilkley Clean River Group and we will do all we can to accelerate the investigation process so we will know what future improvements may need to be made. In the meantime, our surveys have identified three underground water courses which connect with the sewage network and we are monitoring the flow of these to see if diverting them would make a significant difference. If we can reduce the amount of surface water entering the sewage network this should mean that overflows will operate less frequently.”