The water industry has issued a stark warning that without appropriate investment, structured in a way that will achieve maximum impact, customers and the environment could be left high and dry and out of pocket.
In Water 2050: A White Paper, published by Water UK last week, the industry pointed out that it is facing unprecedented challenges over the next three decades, including from climate change, population growth and ageing assets. The paper cited that 350,000km of water mains and 625,000km of sewer are predicted to fail more often unless asset replacement works are increased.
Water UK said the sector’s vision is to be globally recognised as an environmental leader by 2050, stewarding the improvement of rivers and seas, acting on the climate emergency and protecting customers’ long-term interests. But that to achieve that, there are two priority areas for urgent change:
• delivering more environmental impact more efficiently – “We urgently need to implement Outcome-Based Environmental Regulation (OBER) as this will unlock innovation, enabling us to deliver more environmental improvements for less bill impact”;
• protecting long-term customer interests through the right investments at the right time — it called for “clear long-term resilience standards, a common risk framework and forward-looking approaches to assessing investment needs that can ultimately lead to a single adaptive plan for each water company”.
Water UK warned that without these positive reforms, future generations could face severe water scarcity, higher bills and environmental targets being missed, and said water could end up acting as a constraint rather than an enabler of growth and productivity.
Comments