I am delighted to share the announcement today from DEFRA that the government has today published a Plan for Water.
Plan for Water: our integrated plan for delivering clean and plentiful water - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The government recognises many constituents and communities across the UK have understandable concerns about the health and resilience of our rivers, lakes and seas, and the pressures they face, this is why setting out this plan for a truly national effort to protect and improve them has been so vital.
In the UK we care for globally significant wetlands, 85% of the world’s rare chalk streams, and world-famous coastlines, lakes, and rivers. All are a focal point of local communities and an important part of our national heritage. Added to this locally we are all very aware of the water stress status of Mid Sussex, and its adjacent communities, with the complex, interconnected water system under greater pressure from population growth to climate change.
Investment and regulation in recent years has delivered improvements from cleaner bathing waters - 93% are ‘good’ or ‘excellent’, up from 76% in 2010, to greater focus on leakage reduction (reduced by a third) since privatisation. We were the first government to start comprehensively monitoring storm overflows - from 10% in 2015 to 100% by the end of this year, and to introduce new targets on water companies to increase investment and tighten legal permits on storm overflows.
In January 2023 goals and targets were set out with the Environmental Improvement Plan. This Integrated Plan for Water will bring together the significant action already taken, along with more investment, stronger regulation and tougher enforcement on those who pollute.
The Plan covers both the water environment – how clean it is – and water resources (how much of it we have). It is absolutely essential both are considered together. This includes addressing every source of pollution – whether from storm overflows, agriculture, plastics, road run-off, chemicals and pesticides – alongside the increasing demand on our precious resources due to hotter, drier summers and population growth.
This comprehensive Plan outlines actions across three areas.
Firstly, there will be a transformation of management of the whole water system in a joined-up way. New long-term catchment action plans, backed up by new funding, to improve all water bodies in England will be delivered. Water companies will speed up their infrastructure upgrades – bringing forward around £1.6 billion for work to start between now and 2025 to reduce sewage discharges, nutrient pollution and increase water resilience. This includes creating a new Water Restoration Fund, using money from water company fines and penalties to support local groups and projects like e-meandering rivers and restoring habitats, as well as increasing the scope and maximum penalty amount that the Environment Agency can issue against water companies for damaging the environment.
The government’s actions will secondly deliver a clean water environment for nature and people, by addressing each of the multiple pressures and sources of pollution on our water bodies. This includes a ban, subject to consultation, on the sale of wet wipes containing plastic, developing new proposals to restrict the use of ‘forever’ chemicals (PFAS), and more than doubling the money for slurry grant infrastructure for farmers to £34 million.
Finally, the plan sets out actions to secure a plentiful supply of water, in order to meet our long-term water needs for people, businesses, and the environment and close the 4 billion litres of water a day supply-demand gap we will experience by 2050 otherwise. This includes streamlining the planning process so that key water supply infrastructure – such as reservoirs and water transfer schemes – can be built more quickly, and securing new investment by water companies to spend on new water infrastructure in the next two years, including to increase our water resilience.
