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Ofwat chief executive Cathryn Ross has urged the water sector to rethink how it deals with and treats wastewater in order to improve its resilience.
Speaking at a Waterwise conference in London on Thursday, Ross said there needs to be a change in mind-set so that wastewater is seen as a “genuinely useful resource”.
She said that seeing water companies view wastewater as a problem “is something that really bothers me”.
Ross was talking about the implications of the resilience duty the government placed on the regulator in the Water Act, which was passed last year, and how the water companies, as well as other stakeholders, would ensure this is met.
She told delegates that the water companies have tended to focus on “responding to supply and demand balancing issues on the water supply side” and have ignored the potential of wastewater to boost resilience.
Ross added that the water created once the wastewater has been treated should be seen as a “genuinely useful resource” rather than wastewater solely being seen as something that needs to be dealt with and then disposed of.
“There’s a culture change that will have to come on this at some point,” she said.
Ross also said that the regulator would “look beyond the boundaries of the traditional water companies into catchments and even beyond that” in how it, and the sector, would deal with the issue of resilience in the next preice review period (PR19).
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