Securing a resilient water future for the South East
Our consultation for our revised draft Water Resources Management Plan is now closed. The information on this website remains available for reference purposes only.
Introduction
Why we have prepared a Water Resources Management Plan
All water companies in England and Wales are required to prepare and maintain a Water Resources Management Plan (WRMP) under the Water Resources Act 1991 (as amended). It is a statutory plan and its purpose is to describe the way in which we aim to achieve a secure supply of wholesome water for our customers well into the future.
Unless directed otherwise, we must prepare and consult on a WRMP at least every five years. These plans are reviewed annually to keep them up to date with the latest data and information, policies, and customer and stakeholder views. Our WRMP 2024 covers the 50-year period from 2025 to 2075. It has been developed in collaboration with our neighbouring water companies (Affinity Water, Portsmouth Water, SES Water, South East Water and Thames Water) as part of the Water Resources South East (WRSE) group.
We published our draft WRMP 2024 (draft plan) on 14 November 2022 for public consultation over a 14-week period which ended on 20 February 2023. We published a Statement of Response on 31 August 2023 which addressed the feedback we had received on our draft plan and outlined the changes we were going to make to the plan.
This is our revised draft WRMP 2024 (revised plan) and includes updates to our draft plan. It sets out our plan to maintain a high-quality, reliable supply of water for our customers and improve the water environment for future generations. Our revised plan includes some key changes to the draft plan. We have therefore decided to consult on our revised plan as well and look forward to receiving feedback from our customers, regulators and other stakeholders.
Our current supply
We provide high-quality drinking water to nearly 2.6 million people across an area extending from Kent in the east, through parts of Sussex, to Hampshire and the Isle of Wight in the west.
We share borders with Affinity Water, Portsmouth Water, SES Water, South East Water, South West Water, Thames Water and Wessex Water. Water is shared between us and a number of these companies through existing pipelines. We are looking to increase the sharing of water with our neighbouring water companies going forward.
Our future challenge
We currently put around 565 million litres of water per day (Ml/d) into supply under normal weather conditions. The forecasts for population increase in our supply area by 2075 vary between 7% and 34%. Our existing supplies will reduce over the same period due to climate change and the need to protect and enhance the environment.
The combined effect of an increase in demand due to population growth and a reduction in available supply, means that we will need to find up to 543ML/d of additional water by 2075 under average weather conditions. During dry conditions, this could increase to 587ML/d.
