25/02/2014

Is the water industry really sustainable?

The Government has made very clear it is committed to sustainable development. One could argue that the water industry given that it is driven by the natural water cycle must be sustainable. But the recent floods have again called into question whether this is actually the case.

New guidance on sustainable development and resilience in the Water Bill currently being debated has recently been published. In it the Government sets out its view that sustainable development is already a duty and no further powers are needed but it does think new resilience measures are required. These will commit Ofwat to ensure the water companies take a long term view and ensure factors like population growth, climate change and social changes to water demand are taken into account.

This blog would argue that this is already in place in that the water companies already produce 25 year plans. For a water company like Anglian Water adapting to population growth and climate change is already their top two priorities. So it is not clear what difference, if any, the proposed resilience measures will make.

On building on flood plains – again the guidance note says this is already adequately covered by existing planning guidance. But as the floods have made clear – building on flood plains is still continuing at an alarming rate.  200 000 houses over thelast 10 years were built on flood plains. In the last year 87 planning applications to build on high flood risk areas opposed by the Environment Agency still got the go ahead.


There is a real tension between the desire to build more houses and the need to ensure sustainable development. At the moment it is clear the economic case is winning and the other two pillars of sustainability, the environment and social costs are being ignored. This does not bode well for the long term resilience of the water industry.

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