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Southern Water business customers can apply for funding to carry out innovative projects to cut their consumption.
The company’s Business Partnership Fund is open for applications from businesses in Kent, Hampshire, Sussex and the Isle of Wight.
The fund is open until the end of June and is specifically designed to support businesses looking to reduce their water consumption.
The fund has recently supported the Riverside Country Park in Kent to install a ‘Rhino tank’ which harvests rainwater to flush the toilets in the park’s visitor centre.
The tank can hold 2,350 litres of water which, when full, weighs the same as an adult white male rhinoceros, hence the name.
Rainwater is collected via gutters and is pumped automatically to fill the toilet cistern. When the water tank is empty, the system switches over to use water from the mains.
Danielle Bowen, the Riverside Country Park manager, said: “Southern Water’s Business Partnership Fund sponsorship of a rainwater harvesting system for Riverside Country Park is providing the park with the chance to reduce water usage, teach the public about water-saving strategies and overall enables us to have a greater impact in fighting climate change. We really appreciate receiving this “game-changer” in sustainable resource usage.”
Kimberley Turnbull, the Water Efficiency manager at Southern Water, added: “With more people and less water to go round, innovative rainwater solutions save money on water bills and help towards re-using rainwater.”
The UK has set an ambitious target to reduce the use of public water supply per person by 20% by 2038, compared to 2018 usage levels.
The target was set in response to the Environment Agency’s review of draft Regional Water Resource Plans which found an additional 4,000 million litres of water a day will be needed in England by 2050 to meet future supply pressures.
Despite the need to use less water, all water companies fell short of their targets to reduce consumption in Ofwat’s annual assessment released in September 2023.
To help drive awareness of water consumption, Ofwat has proposed directing £75 million, or three-quarters, of a water efficiency fund to centralised campaigning to encourage demand reduction by customers.
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