Anger as Yorkshire Water breaks promise to replace water-damaged appliances in Stannington

Local politicians have expressed anger and disbelief over the announcement that water damaged appliances in Stannington will not be automatically replaced by Yorkshire Water.

The announcement follows Stannington’s ‘gas flood’ in December, which deluged the gas network with over 1,000,000 litres of water and cut the gas supply to ~3,000 properties. The effort to reconnect properties took over two weeks, leaving residents without heating or hot water in freezing temperatures, and left hundreds of gas boilers, fires and cookers damaged beyond repair.

Over 100 households are still waiting for replacements. Customers suffering with broken appliances were assessed by engineers hired by Yorkshire Water, and the company previously promised that all customers assessed before the 1 st of March would be covered.

However, these customers are now being asked to hire an engineer themselves to confirm damage was caused by the gas flood. This £85 cost will be paid by the customer, with promises to reimburse this ‘vague and unclear’. The new procedure will also add further delay for residents who have already waited over three months with broken heating.

The rules are due to Yorkshire Water transferring responsibility for replacements from gas company Aspect to Charles Taylor, a ‘loss adjustment firm’ based in London. The firm’s website states that it can “manage your claims more effectively by reducing claims opex [operating expenditure]. The announcement came as a shock to two local residents, who had previously had their appliances assessed and recommended for replacement in January.

They said:
“This is hardly fair and extremely stressful. We are both over 70, and one of us has mobility problems, yet we’ve seen no sign of a new boiler or gas fire."

"We have resorted to finding an independent gas engineer to make another assessment just to move things along, but that may still take a while. It’s very unjust.”

Sheffield Liberal Democrat leader Cllr Shaffaq Mohammed said:
“If you break it, you replace it. Yorkshire Water’s conduct through this saga has been absolutely appalling – to begin with, it was a lack of maintenance on their network which caused this incident.

"After a lacklustre incident response, they’re now asking residents to prove that the company was responsible for destroying their gas appliances. In several cases, we’ve found that Charles Taylor has access to previous assessments showing appliances are water damaged, but are refusing to pay out until they receive a new report – it looks as if the firm is working to delay and deny claims.

"Stannington residents will see this as a desperate tactic to wriggle out of paying for damage Yorkshire Water caused. It’s disgraceful penny pinching from a company that made a £242m profit last year.

Sheffield Liberal Democrats are demanding that Yorkshire Water accepts Aspect’s initial assessments, and replaces every appliance at no cost to the household.”