Yorkshire Water has outlined plans for reducing supply leaks following the recent declaration of a drought in the region.

As it continued to call on customers to reduce their usage, the firm said it was investing £16m this year to help cut the number of leaks and had recruited 100 leakage inspectors.

In October, the Environment Agency (EA) reported that 21% of Yorkshire Water's supplies were lost due to leakage, higher than the national average of 19%.

Dave Kaye, from Yorkshire Water, said: "We are carefully managing supplies, as well as finding and fixing leaks quickly, prioritising those losing the most water first."

Mr Kaye, the company's director of water, also said Yorkshire Water was making a "significant investment to tackle leakage across the county".

"We've already delivered a 15% reduction in leakage over the last five years, and we'll be investing a further £16m this year to further drive down leakage as part of a £38m package over the next five years," he explained.

"We've also recruited 100 more leakage inspectors who are on the clock 24/7 to find and fix leaks and bursts."

The EA has previously called on water companies to halve the amount of water leaking from their pipes by 2050.

England faced a 5bn-litre public water shortage by 2055 "without urgent action", the EA warned.

In 2023-24, Yorkshire Water lost 47.9ml of water per day per person through leakage, higher than the national average of 45.8ml per day per person.

Mr Kaye said the firm had begun plans to replace more than 620 miles (1,000km) of water mains in areas of York, Sheffield, Barnsley, Doncaster and North Yorkshire which were particularly prone to supply disruptions and bursts.

After the EA declared a drought in Yorkshire on 12 June following weeks of dry weather which had led to low reservoir levels, the firm called on customers to save water.

Yorkshire Water said reservoir stocks had dropped 0.51% over the last week to 62.3%.

The firm thanked customers for their efforts to use water wisely and asked them to continue protecting resources.

Mr Kaye said: "Saving water is a community effort and customers can help out by making small changes to how they use water."

He said those changes could include "using watering cans instead of hosepipes to water flowers and plants, letting lawns go brown as they'll bounce back following any rain, and using the eco setting on washing machines and dishwashers".

All of those methods would "help protect resources further into the summer", Mr Kaye said.