Housing Development Planning: Water Companies

Dan Aldridge Excerpts

Wednesday 12th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dan Aldridge (Weston-super-Mare) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell-Buck. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) on securing the debate; we are all impatient for change and proper accountability from water companies, so it is an important one.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on an issue that directly impacts communities such as mine in Weston-super-Mare. Irresponsible water companies, failing regulation, red tape and suffocated local planning departments have created a perfect storm when it comes to developing the infrastructure and services that we need to deliver for our communities. For too long, our local communities have been underserved by a “computer says no”—or, in this case, a “red tape says no”—approach to planning. It is astounding how many cases I have seen as an MP of sensible, well-thought-out, environmentally based planning applications, that are clearly in the public benefit and that could be easily actioned, being held up by needless and inexplicable bureaucracy.

When I speak to people in Weston, it is clear that although new housing developments bring much-needed growth, that is not without concerns about water infrastructure—not to mention roads, health, offices and retail infrastructure—failing to keep pace. However, the hand-wringing has to stop, and I am genuinely impressed by the ambition the Government have shown in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to deliver for our people, who are sick of delay after delay and of a “Britain cannot get projects moving” mentality.

These things are not just constraints in an inbox to be managed, but genuine concerns that affect people’s daily lives. Residents feel frustrated by rapid developments proceeding without the necessary improvements to essential services such as water supply, drainage and—this is really important in my constituency—rhyne maintenance, which is such a fundamental part of flood prevention.

My constituents are frustrated that water companies do not currently have a formal role in the planning process, so I really am supportive of changing that. The Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 is the first part of the transformation of the English water system, not the sum total of the Government’s ambitions—I am sure the Minister will talk about that later. I am proud that the Government have acted on these issues, and I was able to play an active role in the passage of the Act, which strengthens accountability.

Locally, we have seen the consequences of generations of poor management. Weston’s main beach, as well as Sand Bay and Uphill, are all now classified as having poor bathing water quality. The issues the hon. Member for North Shropshire talked about in her constituency—the flooding and sewage—come to coastal constituencies all around the country. These issues are really interlinked.

The people of Weston and North Shropshire have always deserved so much better. With our water and planning and infrastructure reforms, we are turning the tide on a broken system that has left far too many with a seemingly inevitable decline in opportunities, living standards and water quality. This issue is about getting the balance right, delivering the homes and services we need, while ensuring that our infrastructure keeps pace. I know that the Government are committed to that, and I will continue to work with all concerned to make sure that communities such as Weston-super-Mare are not left behind by an outdated attitude to red tape and bureaucracy, but also by inaction on critical infrastructure such as our water.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Lewell-Buck. I congratulate my hon. Friend the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) on securing this debate and on her tireless work in North Shropshire, which I have seen for myself.

This is a particularly timely debate, with the Government’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill having had its First Reading earlier this week. As Liberal Democrats, we want to see more housing built. In particular, we urge the Government to set a target of 150,000 homes for social rent per year. We also need a new generation of rent-to-own housing for a generation for whom the housing ladder has risen out of reach. However, as the Government push for their 1.5 million homes target, the way to get Britain building is to deliver the infrastructure —the GPs, schools, bus routes, water and sustainable drainage—that communities want to see. The best way to do that is to ensure that local people are at the heart of decisions about how their towns, villages and neighbourhoods should take shape and develop.

Water infrastructure is one of the most challenging things to get right, not least because of the dire state of the existing infrastructure after years of under-investment, as private companies siphoned off funds, often to overseas shareholders and in bonuses, under the previous Conservative Government. Those outflows of money are thrown into even sharper relief by the increasingly unpredictable rainfall and weather patterns that are becoming more frequent and intense as a result of climate change. Fixing this issue is therefore important not just for new homebuyers, but for everyone in communities up and down the country who increasingly face the risk of the disastrous consequences we have heard about.

Many of my Taunton and Wellington constituents know about the risks only too well. In Ruishton, for example, children are frequently unable to reach their local secondary school due to flooding on Lipe Lane, the only road from the village that leads to it. Ruishton is now facing a lot more development that could make things worse. Young people in Creech St Michael face the same problem. Meanwhile, at Hook Bridge in Stoke St Gregory, the River Tone is surging across the floodplain.

[Dan Aldridge]

One of the things that the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and mine share is that we are quite close to floodplains. The rhyne management has been a real problem. That goes back to the austerity cuts of the coalition Government, and we still have not got back from that. That is a real problem for many coastal communities, and it should unite us in getting back to a position where rhyne management allows housing to be delivered sustainably.

[Gideon Amos]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we need more investment in this area, which is why the Liberal Democrat manifesto was the only manifesto to identify the additional funding that the Environment Agency needed for flood defence work, and that Natural England needed. He mentioned the floodplain; much like the other villages that I mentioned, a large part of my constituency is in the floodplain. When the river surges across that floodplain, it far too often carries sewage from the sewage works with it, right across a vast area, in ways that are totally unacceptable. Nobody should have to deal with that raw sewage coming into their home and garden.

My hon. Friends the Members for North Shropshire and for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) are absolutely right that schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 needs to be commenced. The schedule would require the approval of drainage and would require sustainable drainage systems—SUDS—to be provided in all but the most exceptional cases. It would also establish a proper authority for the regulations to ensure they are properly designed and maintained. It is not right that the burden of poorly constructed drainage systems should fall on individuals, who have saved for years to get their first home, because of inadequate regulation and safeguards.

Alongside schedule 3, we should have proper planning enforcement—too often the Cinderella service of planning, as my hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) mentioned. In fact, planning departments recover nothing like the full costs of planning services from applicants, due to the cap that central Government has placed on them for decades. Council tax payers are therefore subsidising those developers. My hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, was absolutely right in November 2023 to introduce a Bill to remove that cap on planning fees. We were delighted to see in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill published this week that that campaign for full cost recovery has finally won the day; it looks as though it has, in any event.

Without the proper enforcement of sustainable drainage, there is a real risk that the drive to increase housing numbers will exacerbate this problem. Having worked with Sir Michael Pitt in a past life, I looked up last night his report on the 2007 floods and exactly what happened to his 2008 recommendation that schedule 3 should then be commenced. By 2014, the Government had consulted on the necessary guidance and were on track for completion of commencement before 2015. I am sad to say that, in 2015, the trail goes very cold. We had to wait until 2023, when the Conservative Government said in their document, “The Review for implementation of Schedule 3 to The Flood and Water Management Act 2010” that they had instead decided to rely simply on policy. In fact, the 2023 Government review concluded that their approach was—using technical language—“not working”. It went on, in yet more technical language, to say that,

“non-statutory technical standards for sustainable drainage systems should be made statutory: as the”

current

“ambiguity makes the role of the planning authority very difficult. The review also found that in general there were no specific checking regimes in place to ensure that SuDS had been constructed as agreed, leaving concerns about unsatisfactory standards of design and construction, and…difficulties of ensuring proper maintenance once the developer has left the site.”

If only they had followed the advice of the Pitt review and commenced schedule 3 back in 2015, many of the people we have heard about would not have had the same problems.

In the past, there was a body of law to control drainage into traditional sewers—in the words of the Public Health Act 1936,

“communicating with a public sewer—

but relatively new SUDS do not have the same body of regulation. There is therefore no longer any reason why schedule 3 should not be commenced as soon as possible, if not immediately. It should not take another flood to make that happen. Having water companies as statutory consultees is also an excellent suggestion, as hon. Members from across the country have pointed out, and I am not sure why it cannot be enacted.

In conclusion, it is time to implement the recommendations of the 2008 Pitt review, of the Government’s consultation on the response in 2014, and of the 2023 DEFRA review that I quoted, and time to finally implement schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, before communicating with a public sewer becomes something that our constituents are forced to do in an all too upfront and personal way in their own homes and gardens.