Water Supply

(asked on 26th June 2019) - View Source

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

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Gardiner of Kimble on 14 June (HL16066), whether they have any plans to construct a national water grid.


This question was answered on 10th July 2019

Water transfers can play a strong role in securing resilience, alongside other new infrastructure and reducing demand and leakage as part of the ‘twin track approach’.

There is already a large amount of water transferred across the country, giving water companies greater flexibility to meet demand. Water companies are finalising revisions to their statutory water resource management plans. These plans set out how they will meet demand for water over at least the next 25 years and many include further transfer schemes.

Ofwat, working with the Environment Agency and Drinking Water Inspectorate, recently established the Regulators’ Alliance for Progressing Infrastructure Development which will make sure regulation enables strategic schemes to improve resilience of water supplies. Such schemes might include water transfers.

We are developing a National Policy Statement for water resources infrastructure which will streamline the planning process for nationally significant water resource infrastructure including large water transfers. We plan to lay the final version of this document in Parliament in the autumn.

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