Today Defra is setting out its new draft Strategic Policy Statement (SPS) for Ofwat, which will come into effect if it lays in Parliament for 40 days without objection.
As the environment is prioritised for the first time in this draft, our CEO Dr Laurence Couldrick adds his voice to those of our Rivers Trust colleagues.
“We welcome the prioritisation of protecting and enhancing the environment in this Statement, alongside the clearer ambition for progressive reductions in storm overflows and greater accountability and transparency across stakeholders.
“The focus on long-term planning with better connection between environmental and regulatory processes to achieve zero serious pollution incidents by 2030 is fundamental. It will help to change the health of our rivers, as will greater inclusion of nature-based solutions and greener approaches.”
Previously, Ofwat has focused on keeping costs down in the short-term rather than long-term impacts on the environment and the legacy for future generations. The new emphasis on long-term thinking, innovation, and partnership working to drive improvements across water catchments gives hope that the water sector will play a stronger role in environmental improvement and nature recovery.
The Rivers Trust still has concerns that the SPS is not yet ambitious enough, and still lacks clarity on how Ofwat should regulate a fundamental shift in trade-offs. Working across sectors to maximise co-funding and green finance opportunities will be vital to achieving this strategy.
If the industry engages with environmental experts such as the Rivers Trusts network to deliver ecosystem services, multiple benefits for people and wildlife, including increased flood resilience, protection for priority habitats such as chalk streams, and cleaner, more plentiful water can be achieved.
Dr Couldrick added: “The outpouring from society on the state of pollution in our rivers shows there has been a mind shift in the population that past practices are no longer acceptable by the public at large.
“The evidence we have collected through our Citizen Science Investigations work shows the extent of the problems but we should not underestimate the collective action and level in investment needed.
“This will not happen overnight, and the public will continue to be frustrated at seeing their local rivers polluted.
“To realise objectives the Government must link this work to the multitude of other environmental plans into a more coherent approach and Ofwat provide guidance on how investment gaps in failing/ageing sewerage infrastructure will be addressed.”
The CEO of the national Rivers Trust body Mark Lloyd said that simply spending more money on traditional approaches by the water companies alone would not be a remedy and to deliver wider benefits to society and best value to customers better data to drive consensus about the pressures on the environment will be needed.
The Rivers Trust contributed to the SPS consultation process via the Blueprint NGO coalition of Wildlife and Countryside Link. Key points that they feel have fallen short on their responses include:
- Climate change: although protecting and enhancing the environment and delivering a resilient water sector are top priorities, they had asked for climate change adaptation and mitigation to be included as a strategic priority in their own right. However, there is no explicit mention of climate change or the climate emergency as a top strategic priority.
- Net zero: they asked for a much clearer indication of what the Government and Ofwat expect the sector to deliver to meet its short and longer-term priorities, including by specifying outcomes, as for example, challenging the sector to go beyond its “net zero by 2030” commitment, by taking action on scope 1,2 and 3 emissions, and to play a leading role in helping wider society reduce emissions (4-5% of UK emissions are from use of product the sector sells). This would require a more transformational way of working towards a less carbon intensive and more circular economy. The expectation on the current SPS is for the industry to just meet its 2030 ambition.
- Storm overflows – the language around storm overflow reduction is clearer in this version of the SPS, however, it does not go far enough in specifically prioritising the reduction of overflows that do most harm or impact the most sensitive and highest amenity sites, which they had asked for in their response.
- Per capita consumption – the SPS expects Ofwat to “hold companies to account for their contribution towards reducing personal water consumption to 110 litres of water per head per day (l/h/d) by 2050”. In their response, Blueprint was calling for a more ambitious target, for companies to adopt a target of 100 l/p/d by 2050 – a level of consumption already achieved across many European countries.
- Biodiversity – they asked for a target calling for 20% biodiversity net gain, but this hasn’t been included.
- Markets: they welcomed the use of markets to drive ecosystem services and nature-based solutions, but in the consultation response they challenged the inclusion of “Use markets to deliver for customers” as a key strategic priority. Markets should be enablers of the other priorities and not a strategic priority in their own right.
- Partnership working: in order to maximise market opportunities, especially for ecosystem services and nature-based solutions, and to deliver value for customers and share data in a more transparent way more ambition around partnership working is needed. This is yet another key message missing in the current document e.g. competition through markets isn’t always the right way to drive more customer value and environmental gain, especially when considering co-funding and collaborative opportunities, so there must be a bigger ambition for partnership working (“encourage water cos to work in partnership” isn’t strong enough).
- Nature-based solutions: in their response they wanted more ambition around water companies adopting NBS as a matter of course, such as in protecting raw water quality and reducing flood risk to assets and customers, and to be able to provide good evidence where these solutions cannot be incorporated. And although the SPS now expects to see an increase in NBS, the expectation is still around “where appropriate”, which is still not ambitious or specific enough in providing the mechanisms by which this can be achieved.
The Rivers Trust is the national body representing 63 local Trusts in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Read more from The Rivers Trust at theriverstrust.org/about-us/news/response-to-defra-strategic-policy-statement-for-ofwat