Other stories from last week

(by Karma Loveday)

Ofwat has published guidance for water companies on adhering to the new Fitness and Propriety Rule. It said it would consider each firm’s approach to the guidance when assessing compliance. 

The Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE) has launched a manifesto ahead of the Holyrood elections in May, calling on the next Scottish government to develop a long-term Infrastructure 2050 strategy for Scotland, as part of a package of governance, investment, and skills improvements. 

According to ACE, a lack of governance, funding uncertainty and systems not fully supporting long-term planning constrain progress. Among other measures, the manifesto called for the introduction of a Scottish Mutual Investment Model which allows private investment to be used to support infrastructure delivery programmes; and a national engineering skills audit. 

Labour and Cooperative MP for Hastings and Rye Helena Dollimore has presented a petition calling on water companies to end the use of biobeads in wastewater treatment. This follows 300m washing up on the Sussex coast after an escape from a Southern wastewater treatment works.

Environment secretary Emma Reynolds has laid the Government’s first Land Use Framework for England before Parliament. This set out a “blueprint for smarter land-based decision making”. Reynolds said the Framework addresses growth, food security and environmental protection; and, through digitisation, would increase transparency and speed up decision making. 

Housing minister Matthew Pennycook has unveiled a plan to create a centrally-led development corporation to deliver nationally significant growth in Greater Oxford. This will be supported by a doubling to £800m (from £400m) of its investment in the Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor. Pennycook listed as constraints on the growth ambition for Oxford  “inadequate transport connections, a lack of affordable housing, and energy and sewage capacity pressures”.

Anglian Water has added its 500,000th Priority Services Register (PSR) customer — a record number. The company said more than 16.7% of households across its region are now registered, with approximately 8,000 customers joining the PSR each month.

Natural England chief executive Marian Spain is to retire. She will remain in post until a successor is appointed, expected to be by Autumn 2026.

A fibre optic leak detection system being piloted by Affinity Water has located more than 100 leaks, potentially saving 2 million litres of water — the daily supply of 10,000 people — in its first three months. Developed by Lightsonic, the initiative uses Distributed Acoustic Sensing which converts Openreach’s fibre optic cables into thousands of sensors that can ‘hear’ and pin-point leaks from surrounding water pipes. It is being trialled in five Affinity locations. 

93% of critical national infrastructure organisations (CNI) reported cyber attacks last year. That’s according to cyber security services specialist Bridewell’s Cyber Security in CNI Report 2026. Half of organisations reported IT disruption or outage following cyber incidents, while nearly one third (31%) said attacks resulted in revenue loss. 

Phishing and business email compromise remained the most common attack methods, with organisations experiencing an average of 11 such attacks per year, along with eight malware attacks. However, regulation overtook cyber threats as the main driver of security investment, with 35% of organisations citing regulatory requirements as their main motivator, up from 26% last year.