Wednesday 15th March
With low rain fall last year and over winter, major water outages last December and increased pressure on supply by new housing, this month's meeting of the Scrutiny Committee for Planning, Ecomonic Growth and Net Zero welcomed a delegation from South East Water and Water Resources South East (WRSE).
Over 90% of Mid Sussex's water supply is from South East Water, while the WRSE is an alliance of six companies in the region using a "collaborative, regional approach to managing water resources."
One of the talking points was the water outages during December 2022 caused by burst pipes that followed a prolonged cold spell which came to an end on Saturday 17th with a jump in temperature from -7 to 13 degrees within 24 hours.
It would seem that the water companies systems for informing affected residences of outages was not fit for purpose. A shortage of bottled water meant some local water distribution points ran dry. There was not enough tankers available to both supply residents and keep water moving between reservoirs and other pieces of infrastructure.
The national regulator has set targets for the reduction in leakage pipes of 15% by openly admitted that they don't know how to meet this. They said that the industry as a whole was looking at innovation to help solve the problem.
When it came to future increase in demand from new housing stock, the water companies replied that they could do little about building regulations and efforts to reduce consumption were limited to the kind of public campaigns that ask you to turn the tap off while you brush your teeth.
The discussions drew to a close before the question of sewage discharge could be raised.
The WRSE has recently closed a consultation on potential future plans to deal with supply in the South East. The main challenges being those of climate change, population growth and how to extract ground water without impacting the natural environment.
The solutions and plans finally agreed are likely to meet the 'best valve' criteria. And this maybe hints at the fundamental issues with the current system; privately owned water companies that for decades have put profits before investment in infrastructure, and a national governments that seem unable to push through building regulations fit for the 21st century, and who despite talk of levelling up, continue to focus development in the water scarce southeast.
The water companies are on the front line of the climate crisis dealing with both drought and flood. The government is allowing them to muddle their way through from one crisis to the next. As the climate crisis deepens, we need central government to take a firm lead. They need to take action now to modernise building regulations and planning, and force the water companies to make the investments needed to ensure everyone continues to enjoy the luxury of clean water coming out of our taps.
Thank you to all the councillors on the committee. We'll give special mention to Councillor Kirsty Adams for her questioning.
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