How we plan for the future
Introduction
All water companies in the South East are working together with the Environment Agency to decide the most sustainable options to provide the water needed to meet future demand.
South East Water has published its latest draft 25-year Water Resource Management Plan from 2010 onwards, which takes into account factors such as housing growth, increased water usage and climate change. We need to plan so far in advance because large scale new resources, such as reservoirs, can take 10 to 15 years to plan, gain permission for and deliver. The company's current plan shows that unless new water resources are built there will not be enough water available from existing sources to meet demand.
Our plans look at three key ways of making water available:- Making better use of existing resources
- Managing customers' demand for water
- Developing new resources
Our consultation
During November 2007 we carried out a number of public exhibitions to explain the process of how we will develop our draft Water Resource Management Plan. The next step was the publication of the draft plan in Spring 2008 when we set out how we intend to supply water from the 25-year-period from 2010 to meet the growing demand for water.
As part of this same planning process, a Strategic Environment Assessment (SEA) is being undertaken and as part of this an Environmental Report has also been completed.
On the 2 May 2008, both the draft Water Resource Management Plan and the Environment Report were published and made available for public consultation.
We welcome views on our plans, and we are inviting anyone who wishes to express an opinion on either or both documents to do so during the consultation period that runs from 2 May 2008 to 1 August 2008.
Extensive public consultation with customers, stakeholders and other interested bodies will be undertaken through meetings and workshops during 2008 as specific water resource schemes emerge. This will allow a clear strategy to be in place by 2009, ensuring the right schemes can be implemented effectively and in time to meet the expected demand for water from 2010 onwards.
The options selected will also form the basis of our next five-year Business Plan which all water companies will submit to industry regulator Ofwat in 2009. This business plan will deal with the period 2010 to 2015. Find out more about how we plan to manage existing and new resources.