Emma Reynolds, Secretary of State at the Department Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has agreed to a request from Northumbrian Water Group to designate its Suffolk Water Recycling, Transfer & Storage Project as development for which development consent is required under the Planning Act 2008.
NWG submitted the request on behalf of its subsidiary Essex & Suffolk Water ESW) in August 2025, saying it was crucial that the project was delivered at the earliest opportunity in order to avoid a significant deficit of water supply for many of ESW’s customers and to lift a moratorium that has been implemented on providing new mains water supplies to non-domestic users in the Hartismere Water Resource Zone (WRZ).
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In a letter to Defra dated 26 August, Monisha Gower Assets Director at Northumbrian Water explained that the Development Consent Order (DCO) process is considered the most effective consenting route as it facilitates the earliest delivery of the project by 2033.
The letter states:
“The DCO provides an efficient framework for obtaining the comprehensive range of statutory powers, permissions, consents, and licences required to implement this significant and complex project across its wide geographical scope.
“In contrast, pursuing consent through the Town and Country Planning Act, alongside multiple additional permissions, licences, powers, and consents, could result in considerable delays to this critical infrastructure project.”
The principal elements of the project (the Principal Development) include:
- An Advanced Water Recycling Plant (AWRP) with a maximum daily deployable output of 11 Ml/d. The AWRP will receive 16 Ml/d of treated wastewater from the existing Lowestoft Water Recycling Centre (WRC) operated by Anglian Water.
- Construction of a new pumping station and potential minor modifications to the existing works at the Lowestoft WRC, which is owned and operated by Anglian Water, to divert treated wastewater to the proposed AWRP.
- Two proposed Service Reservoirs (SRs) for storage of drinking water, located at strategic locations for onward supply and storage. The two Srs are to be sized to provide 36 hours of storage. The central SR will have a capacity of approximately 17ML and the western SR will be approximately 13ML.
- A network of proposed pipelines (totalling approximately 120km), connecting existing infrastructure to proposed infrastructure, transferring new water sources to be treated for onward supply and storage.
Water recycling is a relatively new and emerging technology in the UK - it is not one of the categories of water resources infrastructure that can automatically qualify as a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) under the Planning Act 2008.
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