All-Party Parliamentary Group chair calls on Ofwat to focus on the environmental cost of water

Chair of the newly formed All-Party Parliamentary Group on Chalk Streams and Conservative MP for Broxbourne Sir Charles Walker has called on water companies and Ofwat to work closely together to focus more on environmental issues and how this is reflected in the price of water.

Speaking on a podcast for Affinity Water, Sir Charles said: “We need to engage Ofwat more in concerns about the environment not just on the price of water. It needs to focus more on the environmental costs of our water when it comes out of a stream, as it does in our area, rather than from a reservoir.”

Affinity Water reported Sir Charles is supportive of its recently launched Save Our Streams campaign and its wider work to bring about change, commenting: “Affinity Water has the protection of the environment in its DNA”. He continued: “I’m impressed with the leadership role Affinity Water is taking on these campaigns on the environment to save water such as www.saveourstreams.co.uk and we need to realise that more generally water companies are not the enemy.

"We need a joined-up approach to looking after our rivers and streams and Ofwat should take a leading role in this and support water companies in their environmental objectives”.

Elsewhere in the podcast, Sir Charles said more reservoirs were needed and that while he was not a supporter of the “stick” approach to individual water use targets, he did support the better labelling of white goods for water consumption.