Water policy must be as ambitious as the sector

Water UK's director of policy Stuart Colville tells Utility Week the government needs to match the water sector's ambition to meet demand management goals and to improve sewerage systems

George Eustice’s statement that long-campaigned for water labelling would be introduced was universally welcomed. However, his department was criticised for not backing the move up with minimum product standards and, crucially, building regulations to ensure homes are built to comply with lower water consumption targets.

Colville described the announcement as “the minimum the government could credibly do”, particularly relating to the building regulations.

“It feels incomprehensible to us at Water UK that we will continue to be building houses with an average consumption of 125 litres per person per day when by 2050 we need to get to 110 litres or lower. Why would you continue building up a stock of problem in the coming decades?”

The National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) said in its 2018 report Preparing for a drier future that climate change and population increases meant the UK would face serious water shortages by 2050 without action. It set out a blueprint for government and the water sector aimed at increasing investment in infrastructure and working to reduce demand through efficiency measures.

Water UK said the policy and legislation change “should have gone significantly further” to listen to calls by the water industry, NGOs and stakeholders on demand reduction. “It felt like a real missed opportunity,” Colville said.

He explained the organisation had hoped to see a “really specific proposition” with a timing on it to switch away from the current “flawed” calculation methodology, and to commit to a consultation on a particular target for new homes.

“To be fair to Defra, they understand the importance of this. They’ve seen the evidence and cost benefit analysis that points massively towards more sensible approach to building regulations. They just didn’t feel able to go further at this stage.”

Colville said he hoped the announcement would only be the first step rather than final word. “There is a particular moment in time with the Environment Bill going through, what we can’t afford to do is allow that moment to pass and then in a year or two time see a much weaker change come about.

“Government needs to show the same seriousness of intent that the water industry has shown towards water resources. The NIC said that water efficiency is about one third of the way we will make up the supply demand deficit along with leakage and new water resources.”

Lagging on water efficiency

On new resources and leakage, there is greater governmental focus with long-term targets that Water UK wants to see supported through price reviews, but Colville said the government was “lagging” on water efficiency.

“They’re not showing the same seriousness of purpose on the demand side that we know from the NIC and others is absolutely fundamental to our long term needs on water resources,” he said. “We need them to step up in a way that companies and regulators have been.”

Similarly, he said the Environment Bill, which is currently at the report stage, needed further attention for water despite there being “a lot to like about the bill”.

“The governance framework including the creation of the Office for Environmental Protection is really good. Specifically on the water section there is a lot to applaud because it recognises drainage and wastewater management plans getting statutory recognition.”

Amendments by government have moved this forward to specify that plans will include other risk management authorities such as Highways Agencies.

However, the trade body said ambition was lacking in the overall approach to sewerage because statutory recognition of drainage plans “would not lead to the sort of transformation that is needed”.

Colville said Water UK wanted to see a proper review of the legislation around drainage to move away from the “Victorian attitude towards sewers and drainage” in the Water Industry Act, which focused on public health but not the environment.

The Environment Bill will be amended to put a duty on government to report on storm overflows without looking at policy and legislation as part of that. Water UK has called for a review in the round of policy and legislation to update the underlying principles.

Comprehensive policy review around CSOs needed

One area Colville believes needs attention is the automatic right for new developments to be connected to the sewage network regardless of what that does downstream in terms of pressures on the sewer that could lead to more spills.

“Where a reasonable alternative can be identified that should be done,” he said. “Clearly an amendment on that would be helpful but we need a proper plan from government to reform the whole regime.”

The government’s own amendment to the bill requires it to come up with a plan to deal with overflows. Policy and legislative changes could be used to stop blockages from wetwipes and overflows worsened by the automatic developers’ right to connect to systems that in some places cannot handle the loads.

“As part of the plan to deal with CSOs we want to make sure there is a proper and comprehensive review of policy and legislation. Clearly we need to re-engineer some of the system and add more sustainable drainage will be a really important part of it but we can’t keep making the problem worse at the same time. We’re running to stand still.”

Calls from the trade body for revisions to policy and legislation on both water efficiency and drainage are based on proven examples elsewhere: Australia introduced labelling and minimum standards years ago; the UK introduced minimum standards on energy products; on drainage there are lessons to learn from Wales where mandatory sustainable drainage policy is in place.

“We feel comfortable pressing quite hard for an ambitious response on legislation and policy not just on the water company and engineering side,” Colville explained. “It is tried and tested, there is a really good economic case, proofs of concept out there – that’s why we’re pushing the government to go further.”

Without measures by government the targets for 2050 would be “much harder and more expensive” Colville explained, because demand reduction tends to be an inexpensive way of achieving change compared with new infrastructure.

Colville said Water UK will keep pushing building regulations and minimum standards for water using products via the Environment Bill and support Defra to ensure the opportunity is not missed.