Other stories from last week

(by Karma Loveday)

The Water Industry Commission for Scotland (WICS) is consulting until 13 October on its draft corporate plan for 2027-33, which will coincide with around £8bn of investment in water services planned under the Strategic Review of Charges for the same period. The plan identified four areas of focus for WICS – ensuring customers pay no more than necessary, holding Scottish Water to account, improving the non-household retail market and running WICS efficiently – along with the outcomes the regulator will pursue and its wider approach to regulation. There is a proposed budget of £29m.

Amid ongoing concern over the environmental impact of data centres, the Scottish Government has published a planning direction which requires an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to be submitted during planning for all new data centres with a power capacity exceeding 50MW. This follows a direction last month requiring planning authorities to notify Scottish Ministers of all new data centre applications within seven days of validation. Public finance minister Hannah Mary Goodlad said: “Ensuring that an Environmental Impact Assessment is always part of the application process will create a level playing field for developers and will ensure potentially significant environmental effects are considered from the outset.”

The Agri-Water Cross Sector Challenge will launch on 10 November, the Ofwat Innovation Fund has confirmed. £8m will be available in grants of between £200,000 and £2m for innovators to accelerate, scale, or deploy proven, mature to mid-stage solutions at the intersection of water management with agriculture, aquaculture, forestry or land management.

Pennon Group has received the Fair Tax Mark for the ninth year in a row. The accreditation recognises businesses that pay their fair share of corporation tax and report on their tax practices transparently. 

M Group has developed a process to sustainably recycle end-of-life water meters. More than 200,000 meters have been processed to date, and M Group said it expects up to 4m meters to require sustainable disposal across its UK metering programmes during AMP8. The process enables component materials to be recovered and reused, including plastics and metals, while also creating opportunities to recover small quantities of precious and finite materials from printed circuit boards.

Ofwat has endorsed a request from Yorkshire Water to move the mid-point review date (previously gate two) for the South Yorkshire Sources strategic resource option from June 2026 to March 2027. This follows changes of scope and option variations emerging for the scheme.