Southern Water draft Water Resources Management Plan

Good afternoon,
 
We’re really pleased to be able to share our draft Water Resources Management Plan (WRMP) with our customers and stakeholders. This outlines the actions we need to take to secure a resilient water future for the South East.
 
We face big challenges. The population we serve is growing and the impacts of climate change means less water is available in the environment.
 
The biggest challenge we face is that to protect and improve the environment, we need reduce how much water we take from it.
 
We’ve already started this work but we need to go much further. We need to leave much more in the environment – meaning we need to secure the same amount through new sources and supporting our customers to use less water.
 
We’re committed to halving leakage by 2050 and could go further by reducing it by over 60%. We’re also committed to supporting customers significantly reduce how much water they use – but could set ourselves a more stretching target.
 
Despite using water more efficiently, we will need to invest in a significant amount of new infrastructure. This includes:
·         Building a new reservoir and making better use of existing storage
·         Investing in new sources like water recycling and desalination
·         Building new pipelines to move water around our supply areas and to transfer it from other regions
 
We’ll also investigate how we can work with nature – using catchment-based solutions to improve the resilience of our sources and biodiversity.
 
For the first time, our plan has been informed by a collaborative regional plan – considering the needs of people, businesses and the environment across our whole region.
 
It’s also our first adaptive plan – with different pathways we can follow at different decision points depending on the level of population growth, climate change impacts and how much more water we need to leave in the environment.
 
It’s really important we hear from our customers and stakeholders, which is why we’re consulting on our plan until February next year. You can read our full plan and supporting information, and find out how to have your say at Water Resources Management Plan (southernwater.co.uk)
 
During the consultation, we’re taking part in three webinars to share more details of our draft plan:
 
·         Water Resources South East draft regional plan webinar – 22nd November – 13:30 to 15:00 – register here
·         SES Water, South East Water and Southern Water draft WRMP webinar – 29th November – 14:30 – 16:00  – register here
·         Portsmouth Water and Southern Water draft WRMP webinar – 7th December – 13:30 – 15:00 – register here
 
For more about our plans to secure a resilient water future, visit Water Resources Management Plan (southernwater.co.uk)
 
Kind regards
 
Stakeholder Team
Southern Water


Stakeholderteam@southernwater.co.uk