Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park on 29 January (HL608), what powers exist to curtail housing developments in the Thames Valley until sufficient capacity for treating sewage has been developed by Thames Water.

The Water Industry Act 1991 places a duty on water and sewerage companies to provide, maintain and extend a system of public sewers to ensure that the area is and continues to be effectually drained. Water and sewerage companies and the Environment Agency are statutory consultees on local authority development plans, which provide the primary means of determining where future development should be located, including in respect of wastewater infrastructure. Local councils in their role as local planning authorities adjudicate on individual planning applications which, under planning law, must be decided in accordance with the development plan, subject to other material planning considerations. Water and sewerage companies can comment on individual applications and their representations should be taken into account by the planning authority where they raise material planning considerations.