The Environment Agency has launched a new consultation on the new technical guidelines for water companies to follow when writing their water resources management plans.
The guidelines have been jointly produced by the Environment Agency, Defra, Welsh Government, Natural Resources Wales and Ofwat.
The guidance for water companies in England and Wales sets out a technical framework for water companies to follow when developing and presenting their water resources management plans.
Water companies in England or Wales must prepare and maintain a water resources management plan (WRMP) and set out how you intend to maintain the balance between water supply and demand during a 25 year period.
The Environment Agency is seeking comment from a wide range of stakeholders on the draft guidelines to inform the final guidelines which will be published in Spring 2016.
The Agency says the consultation is relevant to anyone working on, or who has an interest in water company water resources planning. This includes water companies, national and local government, non-government organisations, other regulators, consultants, academic institutions, individuals and community groups, and potential third party suppliers of water.
Introducing the draft Water Resources Planning Guidelines, the Agency said it had made substantial changes to the guidelines since the 2012 version, including reducing the number of pages to less than 40 (compared to over 200 pages in 2012).
New measures in the draft guidelines include:
- the introduction of ‘process verification’ in the early stages of the planning process. As part of this process water companies should publish a method statement explaining the methods they intend to use in developing their Water Resource Management Plan (WRMP). They should also enter into early discussion with the regulators to discuss the methods.
- asking the water companies to produce a plan with a supply forecast that as a minimum tests their supply to the worst drought on record. The Agency would like companies to test how their supply forecast may react to a drought worse than what they have experienced in the past 100 years.
The new guideline also aims to explain how the WRMP links to all other relevant plans such as water company drought plans, business plans and river basin management plans – setting out further requirements for incorporating river basin management plan actions.
Deadline for responses is 8th January 2016. Click here to access the consultation documents online.
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