The Environment Agency, working closely with Natural England, has secured the largest ever commitment from water companies to clean up the environment and invest in new infrastructure since privatisation.
The Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP) sets out over 24,000 actions water companies must take over the next five years to meet their legal requirements for the environment. This series of targeted interventions represents a £22.1bn investment in the environment – four times more than was secured in the last Price Review .
As part of the PR24 process the Environment Agency assessed actions proposed by water companies and, alongside Ofwat and Natural England, provided technical guidance to make sure these actions will provide direct solutions to environmental pressures and help drive nature recovery.
The agreed actions will lead to improvements in water infrastructure to secure future supply, habitats and biodiversity and drinking water quality. For example, water companies have submitted plans to establish trials to remove nitrate, restore nationally important chalk streams, and install bespoke biosecurity measures to remove invasive species.
Further goals set out under WINEP include:
- Reducing the amount of water abstracted, leading to an estimated 60 million litres of water being retained in the environment every day,
- Protecting and enhancing of 13,500 km rivers,
- Upgrading 2,350 storm overflows leading to an estimated annual reduction of sewage spills by of 85,000 annually,
- Improving 21 newly designated bathing water sites across England,
- Reducing phosphorous inputs to the environment at over 800 sewage treatment works,
- Installing 3,500 monitors at emergency overflows sites.
Alan Lovell, Chair of the Environment Agency said:
“This unprecedented level of investment represents a vital step forward towards ensuring we have clean, safe, and abundant water now and for future generations.
“Working with the water companies on this £22bn programme is a crucial way to realise the government’s goals of stimulating development and boosting economic growth, while ensuring the sector can meet its ambitious environment commitments.
“We will work closely with Defra, Ofwat and other regulators to monitor water company progress and ensure they deliver what has been promised. If water companies fail to carry out their legal obligations to the environment, we will take action.”
Steve Reed, Secretary of State for the Environment said:
“It is no secret that our water system needs fixing and that our rivers, lakes and seas are choked by pollution.
“Customers deserve the money they pay in bills to go towards improving the service they receive, and that is why the Government will ringfence money earmarked for investment, so it can only be spent on projects like these.
“We are also going further to fix our water system through the Water (Special Measures) Bill, by introducing new powers to ban the payment of bonuses for polluting water bosses and bring criminal charges against lawbreakers.”
Natural England provides advice and guidance where water company activity may influence protected sites ,including Special Areas of Conservation (SAC), Special Protection Areas (SPA) and Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), such as through water abstraction and discharges, and how this can be improved through the WINEP.
The Environment Agency and other regulators will drive water companies to embrace state-of-the-art technologies and groundbreaking innovations when delivering the actions set out under WINEP.
The investment was secured through Ofwat’s final determinations announced in December and has been factored into upcoming changes to customer bills.
The dataset for the PR24 Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP) is available here.
