Welsh Water ups wastewater spend by £100m and calls for collaboration on rivers

Welsh Water has outlined proposals to boost its AMP7 wastewater spend of £836m by an extra £100m before the end of 2025, enabling it to bring forward investment that would otherwise have to wait until the 2025-30 period.

Subject to regulatory approval, £60m will be spend on phosphorous reduction in Abergavenny, Brecon, Letterston, Llanybydder, Monmouth and Wolfscastle, supporting improvements on the Usk, Wye, Cleddau and Teifi rivers. The remaining £40m will be spent on reducing discharges from storm overflows.

Welsh Water also published a discussion paper, open for comment until 16 September, advocating a collaborative and co-funded cross sector approach to improving river water quality. The discussion paper proposed:

• common goals are established that all stakeholders work towards;

• investment is evidence-led and the evidence base is urgently agreed to target investment effectively;

• Special Areas of Conservation rivers failing to achieve ‘good ecological status’ under the Water Framework Directive are prioritised;

• a “catchment permit” structure is developed to allow a multi-sector approach to be tailored to each catchment for the biggest environmental gain (rather than the current site-based permitting approach); and

• current investment is increased by all sectors to fund improvements but that it remains proportionate and affordable (including for customers).

Welsh Water chief executive, Peter Perry, said: “To drive the improvements to river water quality we all want to see, we need to work together at a catchment level to ensure that the interventions, investments and permitting regime are delivering the required improvements efficiently and that inevitably limited funding has the greatest impact. That is why we’re proposing a new ‘catchment permit’ regime where the right solution for the catchment will be the priority rather than looking at sites individually. No one organisation, sector or regulator can improve our rivers sufficiently on their own – we must all play our part working together.”