We’re tasked with planning the future of our region’s water resources to ensure we can maintain essential supplies and protect the environment in times of drought.
Water companies are required to prepare and maintain a Water Resources Management Plan (WRMP) on a five yearly cycle.
The WRMP sets out how we plan to manage supply and demand for the next 25 years. It examines strategic issues that influence demand for water and water availability. It also sets out how we intend to maintain the balance between water supply and demand to ensure customers receive a continued reliable supply and to protect the environment.
Our updated draft WRMP was submitted to Defra at the beginning of October 2023, and we have now received their approval to carry out a second public consultation on this revised plan.
This consultation process is extremely important to us and the feedback and comments we receive will play a key part in developing our final Water Resources Management Plan which is to be published in January 2024.
Our public consultation on the revised draft Water Resources Management Plan will run for a period of 8 weeks from 11th October to 6th December 2023.
You are free to provide any response or ask any questions you like via this consultation process, however, we have provided several questions in the Customer Summary which may provide a helpful guide.
If you would like to submit any comments on our draft WRMP please submit your response before 6th December 2023 by emailing: water.resources@defra.gov.uk copying in wrmp@southwestwater.co.uk including the following in the subject box: ‘South West Water WRMP Consultation’.
You can also respond to the consultation using our online form.
If you wish to provide feedback by post, the address is:
Secretary of State
Water Resources Management Plan,
Water Services,
Department for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs,
Seacole 3rd Floor,
Marsham Street,
London,
SW1P 4DF.
In order to maintain the security of the water we supply to our customers and in compliance with national security requirements as described in the Water Industry Act 1991 section 37(B), it is sometimes necessary for some information to be removed (or ‘redacted’) from the WRMP documents that we have issued for public consultation. However, it has not been necessary for any information to be redacted from our draft WRMP and the full unaltered content that has been shared with our regulators has also been made available to the public. If you have any questions relating to this, please do not hesitate to contact us.
We held a 12-week public consultation on our draft Water Resources Management Plan (dWRMP) between 14 February and 09 May 2023. Our Statement of Response to the consultation feedback is now available to read.
The Report summarises the 79 responses we received and how we are responding to these.
We would like to thank everyone who found the time to respond.
SWW dWRMP Statement of Response
Since publishing the revised WRMP and the SoR, we have conducted an internal review to check for errors and omissions. We have drawn together an Addendum to the SoR that we hope sets these out clearly. It should be read in conjunction with the Appendices below.
Addendum to our Statement of Response (Nov 23)
There are two appendices to the report. The first sets out the material issues raised by each individual customer or organisations and shows how we will respond to each issue as we fully revise our WRMP in light of the feedback received.
The second appendix sets out the responses received on our Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and provides our responses to these. The responses to the SEA are primarily from Statutory Consultees in the regulatory processes.
SWW dWRMP Statement of Response - Appendices 1 + 2
All responses are equally important and will be fully taken into account in the revised version of our Plan. We will republish the revised dWRMP for a second consultation in early October this year.
We reviewed our previous Water Resources Management Plan from 2014 and updated it to produce a new Draft Water Resources Management Plan, which we submitted to Defra in December 2017. Following permission being granted by Defra, the new Water Resources Management Plan was published for public consultation in March 2018. After the public consultation period we prepared a Statement Of Response, which outlined the changes we made to the Plan in response to the comments we received. In July 2019 Defra granted us permission to publish our final plan.
The Plan has been prepared in accordance with guidelines issued by the Environment Agency. We are a member of the West Country Water Resources Group and are working with other water companies regarding transfers between Water Companies. We are also working with the Environment Agency on proposals for the Lower Otter Restoration Project.
You can access our Final Plan below:
The technical Water Resources Management Plan tables are available on request to wtrstrat@southwestwater.co.uk
A paper copy of our Water Resources Management Plan can be viewed at our offices at Bournemouth Water and South West Water.
| South West Water Peninsula House Rydon Lane Exeter Devon EX2 7HR |
Bournemouth Water George Jessel House Francis Avenue Bournemouth Dorset BH11 8NX |
The published version of the Water Resources Management Plan is required to exclude any matters of commercial confidentiality and any material contrary to the interests of national security. There were no matters of commercial confidentiality. We have excluded information relating to the location of key assets on the advice of our certifier for emergency planning and in the interests of national security.
We are also required to publish tables and information for water resources markets. These are available on our Bioresources page.
You can also find out about our wider plans for 2020-25.