Water Solutions Require more Innovation and Management

CIWEM (UK) has agreed with the principle for better regulation and wider competition set out by the draft Water Bill. CIWEM has however gone on to advocate more radical change can be delivered without further primary legislation.

The need for a rapid pace of change has been widely agreed within the structure of the water sector to help build resilience and help respond to adverse weather conditions and demographic change. Innovative solutions will need to be established, invested in and followed to help solve these issues. CIWEM's advocacy report ‘Regulation for a Sustainable Water Industry’ sets out ways to meet current and future challenges.

CIWEM has urged the government to speed up the progress implementing solutions to the issues raised in the White Water Paper, and to start taking more ambitious steps to deliver various water management programmes.

These issues will be explored in greater depth at CIWEM’s forthcoming Regulation conference in London on 29th November.

CIWEM Executive Director, Nick Reeves OBE, says: “CIWEM is pleased that the Draft Water Bill has been published and welcomes many of the government’s proposals. Even if more competition in the sector does not encourage customers to switch suppliers on the scale predicted, water companies should be encouraged by the existence of competition to improve and innovate their levels of service.

But there remain some serious conflicts in water policy. The Committee on Climate Change noted the need to make water more expensive to deter profligate use. Yet the focus of the draft Bill is to make water as cheap as possible and to increase shareholder benefit.

Whilst the government has focussed on the importance of competition to deliver better shareholder and customer value, the challenges are much more stark and require urgent and wide-reaching action. In a matter of weeks we have slalomed from drought and water restrictions to some of the worst summer flooding on record. The Committee on Climate Change, through its Adaptation Sub-Committee, is the latest body to warn of the link between climate change and extremes of weather. The narrative is water – too much or too little. So we must manage it better, recognising its innate value to our everyday lives and over and above that which is reflected in our bills.”