A staggering number of blocked sewers has triggered a stark warning in Huddersfield.

So far this year, staff have had to unblock 1,564 clogged-up sewers in the town.

So the company is urging customers to only flush the ‘3Ps’ - pee, poo and paper - down the loo.

And technicians blame a rising tide of wet wipes as one of the main culprits for the problem, which can lead to sewer overflows into people’s homes.

Nearly a third of the massive amount of sewer blockages were caused by wet wipes being flushed down the toilet. Yorkshire Water says wipes are increasingly being used as a luxury toilet roll.

The task of keeping the town’s sewers flowing falls to the firm’s team of technicians, dubbed ‘sewer crusaders’. They use high-pressure water spray jets to break up blockages and so reduce the risk of sewage backing up into people’s homes.

James Harrison, technical manager at Yorkshire Water, said: “In Huddersfield, we’re noticing a significant increase in the amount of sewer blockages related to wet wipes.

“We understand information from manufacturers can be confusing as some products say flushable on the packaging.

Yorkshire Water sewer crusaders have unclogged 50,888 sewers this year

“However, we urge people to flush only ‘the 3Ps’ - poo, pee and paper - down the toilet and to put anything else in the bin to try and prevent sewers from becoming blocked.”

The width of sewers in the town ranges from just 15cm to several metres and narrow ones are most prone to blockages, according to the firm. In the worst case scenario blockages can cause raw sewage waste to back up into people’s homes and cause messy interior flooding.

Across the region, there have been 50,888 blockages so far this year throughout the huge 52,500 kilometre sewer network.

Yorkshire Water’s ‘Stop it, don’t block it’ campaign aims to highlight the significant amount of blockages it has to fix and to make customers aware of what items shouldn’t be flushed down the toilet.

Every weekend, in every town and city, several tonnes of wipes are pulled out of sewage plants. Random items such as false teeth, a space hopper and even gold jewellery have been found in the past.

Over the next five years, the company will be investing £252m to improve the quality of the region’s sewer network.