23. meeting with Iain Coucher, Chair of OFWAT, 1 November 2022


I had a very good meeting with Iain Coucher to share ideas on water sector governance and see if he would join our panel of speakers for the City Water Debate.

Iain kindly agreed to speak at the Debate on 21/3/23. With the Chairs of the EA, OFWAT and Anglian Water, plus Sir Dieter Helm and the chief executive of British Water it promises to be an excellent and very high profile event.

We had a wide ranging conversation round the two big issues he sees - water shortages/supply and storm water overflows.

On water supply he felt the underlying situation was very fragile and likely to get more so with climate change, localised population growth and restrictions on abstractions. To meet 2050 requirements we needed a combination of: (i) leakage reduction; (ii)18 new schemes (ranging from new reservoirs to a variety of bulk transfers); and (iii) a 20% plus reduction in per capita use of water. The required leakage reduction seems achievable but it was not clear who would really drive the latter two elements. In particular there were major planning issues round new infrastructure and often required cooperation across a variety of water companies and interest groups. Who will make things happen and how?

(I contrasted the situation in waste management where landfill tax and renewable energy incentives meant it was very strongly in councils’ and contractors’ interests to invest in recycling and energy recovery - hence UK went from being the dirty man of Europe in 1990 to one of the leaders by 2010).

I mentioned Liveryman Bill Cutting’s idea of capturing fresh water just before it is ‘lost’ to estuaries (which is a potentially lower carbon solution with fewer planning issues) and Iain is having a look at this.

On storm water overflows the system in a sense is currently designed to operate as it does. However there is a published government plan mandating significant improvements with deadlines in 2030 and 2035. This will have operating and capital cost implications which will impact customer bills. Higher penalties for breaches are also proposed (and one might foresee tortuous legal cases as to whether a specific incident was farming/surface water or sewage related unless CSOs are completely removed?).

A very interesting discussion which serves to highlight the complexity of the governance/delivery issues facing the water sector!

 

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