Yorkshire declares fourth drought in seven years

Good afternoon readers — and welcome to this week’s Monday briefing.

We hope you’ve been enjoying the lovely weather. According to Steel City Skies’ forecast below, it’s going to continue with high temperatures, lots of sun and no rain for the rest of the week. But while that might mean perfect beer garden weather, it also brings with it some downsides. Yorkshire Water last week announced that we were officially in a drought, the county’s fourth in just the last seven years. What does this mean for consumers and the environment, and how can we become more resilient in the future? That’s today’s big story.

As well as that, we have some sad news about Sheffield’s peregrine falcons, the start of this year’s DocFest, and a beautiful cottage in Storrs.

The Woman who Laughed: Meet the author

From our sponsor: Simon Mason grew up in the Mayfield Valley. "I love Sheffield, city of my childhood, city of hills and rivers, of industry and universities, of football and Stones bitter beer, and of the friendliest people I’ve ever met,” he says. "My father was captain of Sheffield United between 1955 and 1962 but stayed on in the city after he retired to run an engineering company, and my mother was a marriage guidance counsellor in an office near the cathedral for many years.” Simon took a different path into literature, but for the latest in his Finders Mysteries series wanted to return to the city of his birth: The Woman who Laughed.

You can order your copy here. And if you want to know more, Simon is speaking at an event in La Bibiloteka on 25^th June in the gorgeous Leah's Yard — book your ticket here.

In case you missed it

For our weekend read, Dan visited the tree-lined streets of Broomhall to find out about the footpath feud that has set residents against Sheffield Hallam University. Lots of you enjoyed the piece including Perry Ismangil, who said: “Great urbanism piece, vintage Sheffield Tribune.” You can still read that piece and join the debate in the comments section here.

On Tuesday, new Tribune writer Nina Pullman wrote about Regather Farm, a 15-acre farm in the Moss Valley created by a veg box cooperative to grow their own supplies. Five years in, co-managers Abigail and Doug have created a thriving market garden, which even boasts its own field of wheat, but the journey to this point has been far from easy. And, on Thursday, Victoria reheated the cold case of the city’s most notoriously flammable attraction — the Sheffield Ski Village — in a bid to finally prove or debunk the urban legend that its destruction was an inside job. You can read an excerpt of that piece below. 

As he’s showing me out the door, [former owner Kevin] Pullan offers one more piece of evidence to support his innocence, something he clearly considers decisive. If the Ski Village fire was genuinely an inside job, he argues, “whatever urchins I paid to do it would have come out of the woodwork by now” to brag about their involvement. Unless he set the fire himself, I point out. He instructs me to look at his hand. “I’ve built hundreds of homes,” he tells me, not for the first time that afternoon, “and this hand has never laid a brick. Do you understand what I mean?”

The big picture: Crunch time 🥪

Sheffield artist Pete McKee is synonymous with heart-warming paintings and large-scale murals, but at the weekend he tried his hand at something very different: performance art. As part of his The Boy With The Leg Named Brian exhibition, at Weston Park on Saturday, McKee made 400 crisp butties for fans in a little over three hours. “400 Crisp Butties Made, 400 Crisp Butties eaten. And all in three hours and 6 minutes,” wrote McKee on Instagram. “Never underestimate the glorious Sheffield people and their appetite for crisp butties.”

The big story: Yorkshire declares fourth drought in seven years

Top line: On Thursday, the Environment Agency (EA) announced that Yorkshire is officially in a state of drought after one of the driest springs on record. Millions of homes are being warned to prepare for temporary water usage restrictions unless there is significant rainfall in the coming weeks. This follows North West Water making the same declaration last month.

Water shortages: The news won’t have come as a surprise to many. When the EA published their monthly water situation report for the Yorkshire area for May 2025, it revealed this year to have seen the third driest January to May period since records began in 1871, while Yorkshire Water’s situation report for the same month reveals rainfall in May was just 17.1% of the long term average. While we have had more in June so far, according to the EA, this “has not been enough to reverse the impacts of the prolonged dry weather”.

Empty reservoirs: As anyone who has been walking in the hills of western Sheffield recently will know, this has left our reservoirs looking decidedly empty. Yorkshire Water says that our reservoirs are currently operating at 64.6% capacity, well below the 80-85% they would expect at this time of year. Worst of the lot is Redmires, where the three reservoirs, which are a significant source of water for Sheffield, are currently just over half (52.5%) full.

Drought plan: The news means that Yorkshire Water have now begun to enact their 4-stage drought plan. We are currently at stage one of the plan during which customers are urged to voluntarily reduce their water consumption. Unless there is significant rainfall in the upcoming weeks, we are expected to move to stage two, meaning homes across the county will face temporary water usage restrictions, such as hose-pipe bans. 

Wildfire risk: As well as the impacts on consumers, the environmental impact of water shortages can be devastating. Already this year, hot and dry weather has caused wildfires on the Pennine moors, including at Marsden Moor, Wessenden and Rishworth Moor, and anyone who has driven past Owler Bar recently will have no-doubt seen the Australian-style wildfire warning sign erected in the middle of the roundabout after a moorland fire in the Goyt Valley destroyed an area bigger than 300 football pitches. Reduced water levels also impact fish and other wildlife, as rivers and wetlands become disconnected and habitats fragmented, and dry out valuable peat bogs.

Hotter and drier: Yorkshire has previously experienced drought conditions in 1929, 1959, 1976, 2018, 2020 and 2022. As a result of climate change, these are becoming increasingly common, and experts say the situation is expected to worsen. Dr Jess Neumann, associate professor of hydrology at the University of Reading, explained that the latest drought “raises important questions about the security of our water in the long term. It is no longer abundant and plentiful. We urgently need to adjust to a future of climate change and water stress”. 

The blame game: As The Tribune has written before, some have suggested that Yorkshire Water are themselves to blame for not doing enough to tackle leaks. In 2018/19, 11.5 billion litres of water leaked in the city, roughly equivalent to 222,000 people’s needs, or 40% of the city’s population. In 2022, we revealed that Yorkshire Water may have lost almost a billion litres from just one leak near Lady’s Bridge. Others have suggested we are no longer capturing enough water for people’s needs, with no reservoirs being built in Sheffield since the 1920s, when many households in the city didn’t have either a bath or an inside toilet.

Our take: No one can control the weather. We’ve had hot summers in the past and we will have them again. This year looks like it might well be another. But it’s now beyond doubt that they are becoming more regular. In the hotter, drier world of the future, we’ll need to reduce consumption and to be more careful with the water we do have. The debate over whether privatised water companies like Yorkshire Water, who are responsible to their shareholders rather than customers or the environment, are best placed to do that is only likely to grow.

Your Tribune briefing 🗞️

🏰 For the first time, dating evidence has proven the Norman origins of Sheffield Castle. In May 2024, Wessex Archaeology found a small patch of burnt ground on the site, indicating a fire had been lit during its construction, potentially by the castle builders themselves. Over the last year they have been analysing the material using a technique which uses shifts in the Earth’s magnetic field called archaeomagnetic dating, which has returned a date of AD 896-1173. This means that the oldest part of the site is definitely Norman and could even be late Anglo-Saxon, holding out the tantalising prospect that they could finally have found the site of Saxon Earl Waltheof's Hall. Our piece about the castle's history is here.

🏅 A Sheffield PCSO who works with rough sleepers in Sheffield city centre has been awarded a British Empire Medal in the King’s Birthday Honours. PCSO Stephen Hart works as an early morning patrol officer, helping some of Sheffield’s most vulnerable people by checking on the wellbeing and signposting them to relevant services. As well as PCSO Hart, also named in the awards were founder and former headteacher at Mercia School, Dean Webster, who was awarded an MBE, and Susan Yeandle, a sociology professor at the University of Sheffield specialising in the lives of unpaid carers, who was awarded a CBE.

🦅 Lots of Sheffielders love following the exploits of the city’s peregrine falcons at St George’s Church. However, this year there is some upsetting news to report. One of this year’s fledglings has sadly died after getting stuck in the Diamond Building opposite her perch. Exactly what happened isn’t clear but while attempting one of her first flights, experts believe she somehow accidentally entered the building via a window or air vent, which open automatically on warm, calm days as part of its climate control system. Unfortunately, the bird then crashed around inside the building for some time before it was found, fatally injuring itself. “Nothing remotely like this has happened before so for now we must hope it is nothing more than a freak event, hopefully never to be repeated,” the Sheffield Bird Study Group wrote on their blog. Her two male siblings are both doing well and in good health.

Coming up

This week we will be sending two more packed editions of The Tribune to our paying members. For the first, Victoria spent several hours at BAE System’s new factory in Tinsley — a trip that ended, rather unusually for a press conference, with her being handed branded merch to take home. In the second, Daniel Dylan Wray interviewed Richard Hawley for a piece on the history of The Leadmill as the venue prepares for its final send-off event.

This week’s weather 🌥️

Our weather forecast comes from dedicated Sheffield weather service Steel City Skies, who say this week will be fine throughout and increasingly hot as a plume of very warm air wafts northwards.

Monday 🌤 Dry with lengthy spells of strong June sunshine and light to moderate WSW winds. Clear overnight, with highs of 25C.

Tuesday ⛅ A weakening front may well bring more cloud during the morning, otherwise it's fine again. Breezy winds from the west and highs of 25C.

Wednesday 🌤 Patchy cloud and long spells of sunshine with mainly light westerly winds. Highs again around 25C.

Thursday 🌤 Hot with only small cloud amounts and lengthy spells of unbroken sunshine. Winds light from the east-southeast with highs around 28C.

Friday 🌤 Staying hot and dry with further sunny periods. Winds light from the south to southeast with temperatures potentially touching 30C.

Outlook: Very warm or hot into the weekend with sunshine as well as the potential for a breakdown to somewhat fresher conditions. Very uncertain, however.

To see the full forecast and keep up to date with any changes to the outlook, follow Steel City Skies on Facebook.

The weekly Whitworth ✍️

Cartoonist James Whitworth with his take on Sheffield Council’s nomination for the most improved council of the year award at the recent Local Government Chronicle Awards. Unfortunately they failed to win, with the award ultimately going to Oldham Council.

Home of the week

This picture postcard stone cottage in the beautiful hamlet of Storrs dates back to 1642, when it was used as a cutler’s forge. The building has retained much of its original character, with exposed wood beams and stable doors. The main attraction though, is the exterior, with an extensive, wildlife-friendly garden, two outbuildings and a scenic garden room for al fresco dining. It is on the market for £695,000.

Things to do 📆

Art 🖼️ Bubba2000 is taking Sheffield street art back to the old school! Over the past six months, the much-loved artist has been busy preparing The Catpack, an art trail featuring hundreds of “paste-ups” (pre-prepared images which are then pasted on surfaces) of 25 different cats all over the city. Launching the trail on his Instagram page, Bubba said he wanted as many people as possible to get involved — so if you see a cat out there, post it online and tag him in, adding #catpack to the post. Monthly prizes will be given to the people who have found the most cats, and there will be special prizes for the first three people who find all 25 cat designs. Below, Bubba explains how the idea for The Catpack came about:

After the success of my “Home-Coming” show last October I was feeling a bit disjointed as to where to go next, I didn’t want to be one of these artists that just keeps doing the same thing over and over again, and the outsider/street art scene had moved on to bigger and bigger pieces since becoming legitimate in the eyes of the viewing public, so I thought to myself why don’t I do the exact opposite to counteract that, something that instead of being bold, brash and in your face (no disrespect to any of those artists, with the exception of a certain plagiarist all your work is AMAZING!) why don’t I do something that would make you actually have to drag your face away from your phone screen and actually LOOK!

Tour 🥾 On Tuesday, learn about the dozens of commemorative plaques in Sheffield on this city centre walking tour. Do you know about the amazing people behind the plaques and commemorations in Sheffield? Join Sheffield Museums for this relaxed walking tour around the city centre and discover the fascinating stories and characters that decorate Sheffield’s streets. The 90-minute tour begins at 2pm outside the Millennium Gallery. Tickets are £10.

Film 🍿 Starting on Wednesday is DocFest, Sheffield’s annual celebration of the best in documentaries. Now in its 32nd year, the 2025 edition features over 100 films, talks and events packed into six days. Highlights this year include Oscar-winner Mstyslav Chernov’s 2000 Meters To Andriivka, but the one that has caught our eye is Sheffield on Film by the Yorkshire Film Archive, which will receive its world premiere at the Crucible on 22 June.