United Utilities (UU) has issued a wide-ranging call for options inviting interested organisations to submit proposals to help with the development of its Drainage and Wastewater Management Plan (DWMP).

The water company says it understands the importance of considering a wide range of solutions and working collaboratively with external stakeholders. Proposals can be brought forward by a range of organisations, including:

• Landowners or land users within the United Utilities region whose activities influence drainage or environmental performance, including opportunities for catchment based interventions;
• Design organisations offering services or technologies that could deliver demand or capacity benefits;
• Delivery organisations capable of implementing relevant interventions; 
• Operators able to support the ongoing operation of such solutions.

UU is inviting interested organisations/individuals to submit their response via an online form - no other documentation should be submitted at this stage. Respondents are asked to complete the response form above as fully as possible - however, where the required information cannot be provided, UU says it will be happy to work with respondents to fill in any gaps after submission. The engagement deadline is 12:00pm 12 June 2026

UU is currently developing its statutory DWMP setting out how it will plan for, and maintain, a resilient and sustainable drainage and wastewater system over a minimum 25 year planning horizon, taking account of current and future risks, pressures and uncertainties.

Due to be published in August 2028, the plan will consider how the drainage and wastewater system can continue to operate effectively in the face of increasing external pressures that threaten long term resilience, including:

• Population and customer behaviour, increasing household wastewater demand and placing additional pressure on sewer networks and wastewater treatment capacity;
• Development, including the growth of specialist developments such as data centres, which can generate additional wastewater or altered effluent characteristics from cooling processes, creating localised challenges for network and treatment capacity;
• Climate change, resulting in more frequent and intense rainfall events that place increasing pressure on sewer networks, wastewater treatment works (WwTWs) and receiving environments.

The Draft DWMP will be published in November 2027, for public consultation and subsequent modification prior to finalisation in August 2028.

UU is currently progressing risk-based assessments alongside future scenario analysis to understand emerging risks to wastewater network capacity, WwTW capacity and environmental performance across the planning period.

The utility is now progressing the options development and appraisal stage of DWMP28 to identify interventions that could mitigate these risks and deliver best value outcomes.

While the company has developed an initial range of potential options internally, to ensure opportunities are not overlooked, it is now seeking to engage with the market and other organisations to identify alternative or complementary options that could be evaluated alongside those developed internally.

United Utilities is inviting proposals for demand and/or capacity management solutions that could contribute to the delivery of DWMP28 and help:

1. Improve efficiency and deliver better outcomes for customers at lower whole life cost;
2. Introduce innovative, market led approaches to managing long term drainage and wastewater resilience pressures;
3. Enhance natural capital in the North West, delivering wider environmental and social benefits;
4. Provide sustainable solutions to water quality and sewer flooding risks.

UU is aiming to demonstrate best value planning by exploring innovative routes to delivery and solutions that deliver multiple benefits - the utility says it is particularly interested in proposals that support improved management of drainage and wastewater at a catchment scale.

Examples of potential third party options include:

• Customer-side options: measures to manage demand from domestic or non-domestic customers, including water efficiency, behaviour change and source control approaches;
• Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) and surface water management options:
• measures to reduce surface water entering the sewer network, such as attenuation, SuDS and natural flood management;
• Sewerage network options: interventions to optimise or enhance network performance, including operational improvements, storage and conveyance solutions;
• Treatment and catchment management options: catchment-based interventions delivered in partnership to manage water quality risks (e.g. diffuse pollution or nutrient management), alongside engineered or hybrid solutions to improve treatment performance and environmental outcomes.

Click here to access the UU Call For Options - DWMP 28 online form

If an organisation/individual is unable to submit by email, then a hard copy of the response template should be posted to the following United Utilities address:

Drainwage and Wastewater Management Plan Manager

Haweswater House, Lingley Mere Business Park

Lingley Green Avenue

Great Sankey

Warrington  WA5 3LP

All options will be subject to consistent screening and selection criteria at a number of stages and no option identified will be implemented until 2028 at the earliest. The options appraisal stage will assess the whole-life costs and whole-life benefits of each feasible option, alongside consideration of its environmental impacts. The appraisal provides further screening against environmental requirements and enables options to be ranked on a cost-benefit basis. The costs considered within the appraisal include:

1.  Capital costs, including initial investment and any ongoing maintenance or replacement requirements over the life of the option;
2. Operational costs, including fixed annual costs (such as reservation or standing charges, expressed in £/year) and variable or volumetric costs (expressed in £/megalitre);
3. Environmental and social costs, including both fixed and variable impacts where applicable;
4. Carbon costs, calculated from estimated greenhouse gas emissions and converted from tonnes of CO²e into monetary values.

Following the market engagement event, United Utilities says it will, wherever possible, work with respondents to fill in gaps in responses.The purpose of this screening is to ensure that only potentially feasible options progress to be developed further. For options passed forward to the "feasible" options list, it will request more detailed data on each option to allow a scope of the option to be developed. The period for submission of more detailed data will be Summer 2026.

United Utilities will select the more cost beneficial options as "preferred" options for inclusion within the Draft DWMP, and will notify all "feasible" options respondents accordingly.

The programme appraisal stage will assess the benefits and costs, as well as the wider natural capital and environmental impacts of each feasible option, and apply constraints in order to develop a best value programme to be put forwards for the DWMP. Programme appraisal is expected to conclude by Autumn 2026.

United Utilities will then continue to engage with "preferred" option respondents in order to confirm the inclusion of their option(s) within the Draft DWMP, including seeking to establish an "agreement in principle" for the option by December 2026.

United Utilities will develop a list of "unconstrained" options and any options submitted will form part of this list. The options are then filtered (i.e. screened) to remove implausible options that may not actually work and deliver a benefit; respondents will be involved in discussions during this period.

The resultant feasible options will be further assessed to appraise the costs of construction and operation of the option alongside an appraisal of the environmental and social impacts of the option. Once agreed with stakeholders the primary screening criteria will fall into categories and will consider:

• Whether the option can provide either a drainage benefit or manage wastewater capacit - UU will not discount any options based on uncertainty or the quantification of benefit at this stage and will work with providers of information to fully understand the option if the benefits are not clear at this stage.
• Whether the option has a high risk of failure or inherent uncertainty e.g. consideration of the engineering complexity of the option
• Whether the option could breach unalterable planning or environmental constraints – e.g. if the
• Whether the option could face political and customer disapproval e.g. if the option could cause significant negative socio-economic impact that cannot be mitigated.

Current and estimated start and end formal contract dates are 3 August 2026 to 7 September 2026.

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