Agenda item

Report by Corporate Director of Environment and Place

Water resources regional plans across England have reached a draft stage.  The government set out the requirement for such regional plans in a recent government guideline, following the National Framework 2020for water resources called ‘Meeting our Future Needs’. 

Draft individual water company plans have also been produced.  These Water Resource Management Plans for 2024 (WRMP24) will replace those that exist from 2019 (WRMP19).  

It is recommended that the County Council responds to some of the current water resources regional and company draft plan consultations.

The Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee is RECOMMENDED to feedback any comments on the draft WRSE response, appended, for consideration by the Corporate Director for Environment and Place in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Climate Change Delivery and Environment by Friday 3^rd February (a draft response is included in the Annex)

The Committee considered a report on the County Council’s proposed responses to the current South East water resources regional and company draft plan consultations. Draft responses were being prepared for those with a deadline of 20^th February 2023. The draft Thames Water WRMP24 had a delayed publication date, of 13^th December 2022 and has a deadline of 21^st March 2023, and therefore, a draft response has not yet been prepared.

The Director of Planning, Environment and Climate Change presented the report and referred, in particular, to the Council’s opposition to the proposed strategic reservoir described in the Thames Water plan.  She said that a representative of GARD had been invited to the meeting to explain their organisation’s views on the proposed development.

Phil Stride from Thames Water gave a presentation on the consultation on the two plans. He said that that Thames Water were keen to hear the Council’s views on these plans. He made the following points:-

-        The need for resource planning to address the potential shortfall in water resources in future decades

-        Work with the Environment Agency and other stakeholders on scenarios for abstraction reduction

-        The development of a best value plan

-        Managing leakages and water demand effectively

-        Development of new sources of water

-        Proposals for the South East Strategic Reservoir

-        Opportunities from the plan for Society, the Economy and the Environment

-        Proposals for consultation and engagement

Derek Stork, Group Against Reservoir Development gave a presentation covering the following points:-

-        Aims of the GARD campaign/response to the plan

-        Analysis of water demand predictions

-        Performance of Thames Water against government targets on water efficiency and leakage

-        Drought resilience

-        Supply-side solution -de- emphasising new reservoirs

-        New infrastructure to 2040

During discussion, members made the following comments on the draft response to the plan set out in the report:-

-        Too much emphasis on engineering solutions to the problems

-        Targets on water leakage and performance were not sufficient

-        Insufficient proposals on educating the public on reducing water usage

-        Concern that an Oxfordshire-built reservoir will benefit other areas

-        There was no local support for the reservoir plans

-        Concern about the choice of language in the Council’s proposed response set out in the report

-        A holistic approach was needed to water resourcing before detailed matters raised in the proposed response are considered

The representatives from Thames Water answered a number of questions on their presentation.

RESOLVED to:-

a)    recommend that the Council includes, as part of its consultation response, a statement setting out Oxfordshire County Council’s vision in terms of a holistic approach to water management, highlighting our preference for solutions that are based in nature and that recognise the reality of an increasingly water scarce environment and the need to adapt to this reality.

b)    support the proposed response to the consultation set out in the report

c)     recommend that the Council ensures appropriate language is used in future responses to consultations and all Council documents, avoiding unclear and divisive words such as ‘nonsense’

d)    recommend that the Council works with Thames Water to explore if more can be done to expedite water leakage repairs.