An alliance of environmental groups and stakeholders has called for increased investment at the next price review to end to river pollution and the use of combined sewer overflows (CSOs).
Wildlife and Countryside Link (WCL) produced the Blueprint for Water report, which set out a route to recover biodiversity, drive down pollution and re-think people’s relationship with water through government intervention and action by water companies and other stakeholders.
The manifesto suggested the need to build an effective enforcement regime as the first step to driving down pollution. WCL’s report said a properly funded, transparent and comprehensive monitoring and enforcement regime was needed to drive compliance up and pollution down, funded via the ‘polluter pays’ principle.
To end pollution from sewage and wastewater the group urged government to set a wastewater target in the upcoming Environment Bill that drives water companies to phase out the use of combined sewage overflows.
Speaking at the manifesto launch, Philip Dunne, the environmental committee chair whose private members bill ensured CSOs were included in the upcoming environment bill, said awareness of the issues was higher than ever before.
He said: “We’ve made great progress in the past year at changing the dynamic between the powers that be and the way they recognise growing consumer and voter pressure to sort out the appalling state of our waterways.”
He added that public awareness, together with the introduction of real-time monitoring upstream and downstream of assets and a requirement on water companies to disclose CSO spillage events far quicker will heighten public attention.
“When the public realise the true state of waterways, they will start to rise up and complain, which will put political pressure on government to ultimately get more funding invested to sort this out.”
He described this as a “transformative” step in the relationship between the public and water companies because of the emphasis it will start to place on wastewater treatment, which Dunne described as “the poor relation in terms of capital spend” to clean water supply in spending reviews. Dunne previously called for spending to be doubled on wastewater treatment to reduce the reliance on CSOs.
The manifesto also suggested that wastewater treatment works next to protected rivers or waterways should be upgraded, or even removed to stop spills into the waterways.
Targets to significantly reduce abstraction from chalk streams should be included within the next price review from 2025, WCL suggested, adding that government should consider assigning more ambitious targets for chalk streams ecological status.
As part of efforts to change relationships with water and the water environment, the group said personal consumption targets should be more ambitious at 100 litres per person daily by 2040. It also urged government to amend policy and regulation to drive water efficiency in new developments and existing housing stock, including stricter standards within the Future Homes Standard & National Planning Policy Framework.
In July Defra announced water labelling would become mandatory on household and non-domestic goods to inform buyers at the point of purchase how much water products use. The department neglected to introduce mandatory tougher standards for home building with only an optional standard for developers of 110 litres per person per day.