Agenda item

(1)       Mr Turner introduced himself as KCC’s Water Resource Manager within the Flood and Water Management Team – Spatial Planning and Policy Unit.  The slides of his presentation are contained within the electronic agenda papers on the KCC website. 

(2)       Mr Turner said that his team maintained a high level overview of Kent’s 5 water companies: South East Water, Affinity Water, Southern Water, Thames Water and Southern and East Surrey Water.   It also maintained an overview of some of the broader issues such as population growth, climate change, infrastructure provision, and environmental constraints.  Some of this was done through the Kent and Medway Infrastructure Framework which set out the infrastructure requirements to meet future growth and also provided detailed demographic information such as population change, household occupancy trends and age distribution.  This information was made available to a large number of utility providers for use in infrastructure planning.

(3)       Mr Turner then said that infrastructure growth did not necessarily mean an increase in water demand.   To illustrate this point, he displayed a graph produced by Southern Water showing how much water they were putting into their network on a daily basis between 1961 and 2015.   The graph peaked in 1989/90 when the water industry was privatised (leading to capital investment in control of leakage) and then reduced by some 25%.   The reasons for the continuing reduction were continued leakage reduction, the decline in industrial demand and metering programmes which had led to greater water use efficiency.   The other water companies had experienced a similar trend. 

(4)       Mr Turner said national sources of information also contributed to his work.  The Water Resources Long Term Planning Framework 2015 – 2065 had been commissioned by Defra and published by Water UK in 2016.  This study took a long term approach and considered the changing pressures on water resources, including more severe drought conditions which could arise beyond what had happened historically, whist assessing a number of measures that could strengthen resilience. It had also made high level recommendations on water resources management.    

(5)       The Water Resources Long Term Planning Framework 2015 – 2065 had analysed a number of future scenarios for population growth and water demand. Its recommendations focussed strongly on water demand management, new resources and regional transfers from areas that had a surplus to those that did not. 

(6)       The Flood and Water Management Team also conducted more local specialised analysis such as the Kent Water for Sustainable Growth Study.  This study had looked at water supply and demand issues up to 2031 and examined the scope for water neutrality (e.g. compensating for the increase in water usage arising from new homes by reducing water usage in neighbouring homes).  It had also assessed the potential around Waste Water Treatment Works.   The Study had concluded that the water companies’ current Water Resource Management Plans had been produced before the housing growth projections had significantly increased.  This meant that the supply would need to accommodate these new projections. The Team would be looking closely at the companies’ data in their new draft Plans.  The second conclusion was that there was a greater need for water neutrality, particularly in those areas where growth projections were showing a very marked increase.   The third conclusion was that there were grounds for concern over whether technical improvements to Waste Water Treatment Works would be able to keep up with growth levels.  Technology was developing rapidly and appeared to be keeping pace with growth levels although there were some locations in Kent which would need careful monitoring.

(7)       Mr Turner then said that the Flood and Water Management Team was also involved in supplying advice for new developments (such as Otterpool Park) advising local councils on integrated water management, including changes to the rules on competition in the water industry which enabled other companies apart from the five in Kent to supply water to them.   The Team also helped to bring about better collaboration between water companies, local planning authorities and housing developers. 

(8)       Another area that the Team was active in was around water management for horticulture. Mr Turner said that it was easy to forget that water management was not just about resources, it was also about a lot of other users of water, many of whom took their water directly from the environment.  KCC was working with a range of partners such as NIAB EMR (formerly East Malling Research), South East Water and the Environment Agency. New systems were being developed to provide water savings and increased productivity as well as business profitability.    These systems also reduced flood risk and pollution.   Finally, the new Water Efficient Technology Centre in West Malling was also bringing new business activity into Kent.

(9)       in response to a question from the Chairman, Mr Turner clarified that “integrated water management” meant that surface water run-off and waste water sewage was all part of one approach.  There was no such thing as water that was not a water resource.  Less clean water was simply a less useful resource. Waste water treatment technology was developing rapidly to the point where consideration would soon be given to whether the word “waste” was redundant.  Surface water needed to become as recoverable as possible so that it could be re-used close to the point where it landed.  He personally believed that the correct approach was an integrated engineered system around new neighbourhoods and developments.

(10)     Mr Turner replied to a question from Mr Chittenden by saying that waste water was currently being treated to the standard that could be achieved through current technology before the effluent was discharged into the river.  These discharges of effluent needed to be licensed by the Environment Agency in respect of the flow and quality of the effluent.   Whenever the volume of flow increased, the quality of the effluent needed to improve by a corresponding factor in order to avoid the creation of an additional burden on the environment.

(11)     Mr Chittenden asked whether waste that was discharged into the sea still came back to shore in an untreated state.  Mr Turner replied that for the most part, all waste water was treated to a high standard at a WWTW with the effluent being discharged under tight control from the Environment Agency.   There were still, however, problems arising from overflow which meant that untreated discharge took place. The River Thames was particularly vulnerable to this problem.    Efforts to reduce this problem were on-going.      

(12)     RESOLVED that Mr Turner be thanked for his presentation and that its content be noted for assurance.