24 October 2008
Natural England challenges water companies’ failure to address water consumption and extraction levels.
Following the Water 2008 conference (Thursday 23 October), Natural England has called on government to tighten the regulation of water companies, whose resource management plans are flying in the face of government policies to reduce water consumption and extraction.
Water use is already placing serious pressure on the natural environment with water levels and quality seriously compromised in many areas. The latest Water Resource Management plans published by England’s water companies suggest there is very little commitment to reverse this increasingly damaging trend.
Helen Phillips, Natural England’s Chief Executive said, “Water resources are under immense pressure which will only intensify as population increases and climate change take effect. It is dismaying that many water companies’ water resource plans, far from focusing on reducing per capita consumption and carbon usage, are actually planning in going in the opposite direction, in direct contradiction of the Government’s own strategy.
“There is now a real need to have statutory water efficiency targets to ensure the water industry deals properly and urgently with this issue”.
Natural England expresses real concerns that very few of the water companies’ plans have fully assessed the impacts of their proposals on the natural environment, nor have they indicated how they will deliver their SSSI duty or wider biodiversity and landscape duties.
Many plans fail to appreciate broader biodiversity objectives and there is a need for wider planning to reduce overall abstraction pressures, especially in water stressed areas in the East of England and the South East.
Helen Phillips continued, “We must wake up and recognise that ‘more of the same policies’ just will not be sufficient to protect the natural environment and water customers’ interests over the next 20 years. Water resources cannot be squandered in the way they have been in the past, and water companies need to do a great deal more to ensure that their strategies going forward properly address this”.