Soakaway Tanks · Yorkshire

Soakaway installation in Leeds

Leeds splits in two for infiltration. The Coal Measures under the city and the west mostly hold water, while the Magnesian Limestone around Wetherby and Boston Spa can let it drain. We install crate soakaways wherever the percolation results back them up.

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Where we install

Wetherby
Boston Spa
Bramham
Aberford
Collingham
Otley
Horsforth
Roundhay
Garforth

Base · Tamworth B78 2BP

Limestone in the east, mudstone in the west

Across central, south and west Leeds the rock is Coal Measures: bands of sandstone between mudstones and shales, often under a cap of clay. Percolation tests there are frequently poor, and some plots sit over old shallow mine workings that an engineer will not want to send water into.

Towards the eastern edge of the district the picture changes. A ridge of Magnesian Limestone runs north to south past Wetherby, Boston Spa, Bramham and Aberford, and fissured limestone can take water well. Sandy river deposits along the Wharfe can also give usable results, though close to the river at Otley and Wetherby the water table can rise high enough in winter to rule a soakaway out.

Working from your engineer's numbers

The design begins with testing on the plot, arranged by your engineer, who then sizes the soakaway and sets its depth and its distance from buildings, boundaries and the water table. We build from that design and nothing else.

Where the figures are borderline we raise it before the crates are delivered. Plenty of Leeds sites end up with attenuation and a controlled discharge to a beck or sewer instead, and that is the engineer's decision to make, not something to fudge on site.

Inside the excavation

Your groundworker digs and levels the pit. We look at the base before anything is laid, then wrap the pit in a permeable fabric that passes water but holds back the surrounding soil.

Crates are built up inside that wrap to the volume and loading on the drawing, whether the soakaway sits under a lawn, a driveway or a school playing field. Inlets and the silt management, catchpits or filters as designed, are connected, and the geotextile is folded and lapped over the top. The structure comes back to your contractor closed and ready to backfill, with inspection records and documents for building control.

Infiltration first, where the ground allows

Approved Document H ranks infiltration ahead of a watercourse or a sewer as the first option for surface water, and the 2025 national SuDS standards for England expect designers to use it wherever the ground will take it. In Leeds that means soakaways on the limestone and the free-draining pockets, and storage almost everywhere else.

A soakaway that silts up has stopped doing its job. Keep the catchpits and filters upstream emptied and the crates need no attention at all. On a limestone plot near Wetherby that small habit is what keeps a soakaway draining for decades rather than years.

Recent work in Yorkshire

Crates for the 183m³ adoptable storage tank being built up in the 2.5m-deep excavation at Oxspring

Two adoptable storage tanks, 276m³ in total

Oxspring, Barnsley · 2026

Aquatech crew laying membrane in the tank excavation beside the railway buildings at York station

Attenuation tank beside York station

York · 2026

Soakaway Installation Leeds

Frequently asked questions

Plots on the limestone there are among the likelier in the district to pass a percolation test, but every plot has to be tested. Your engineer decides from the results.

That is for your engineer and the ground investigation. Putting water into ground over old workings carries its own risks, so many of those sites use attenuation instead.

Yes. Or, if you've already bought the crates and fabric, we'll install yours.

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