Water resources can cope for 25 years

South West Water is confident it will have enough water resources for the region for the next 25 years, and building new reservoirs are a last resort.

South West Water is confident it will have enough water resources for the region for the next 25 years, and building new reservoirs are a last resort.
They were speaking at a meeting of West Devon Borough Council’s overview and scrutiny committee where members raised concerns about how the government’s targets on housebuilding will impact the water and sewerage network.
The government plans to build 1.5 million new homes over the next five years and West Devon is expecting 400 more a year.
Head of local government liaison for South West Water Alan Burrows said people use more water in the south west than other parts of the country but this could be mitigated through education, building regulation controls and working with manufacturers of high-use washing machines.
“There is a lot we can do to reduce demand,” he said. “We also look at solutions like moving water from slightly wetter places to dryer places in the region and increasing abstraction.”
Water abstraction plants remove water from natural sources such as rivers, lakes or from underground.
The Gatherley plant on the River Tamar moves water to Roadford Reservoir which serves South West Devon, Plymouth and North Devon.
Mr Burrows said a new reservoir for the south east of England had been talked about for 46 years and it had only now got the go-ahead.
“It’s the last resort in most instances,” he said. “We have to do a 25-year look-ahead as far as strategic water resources go, and the water resources management plan would not be signed off unless we could give certainty to the regulator that we can provide enough water through less rainfall and droughts.”
He said there are a number of new water resources in Cornwall in old quarry and clay mining areas and desalination (which treats seawater to produce drinking water) is being explored.
But strategic waste water asset manager for South West Water Jane O’ Connor said the 1.5 million homes announced by the government took the  company a bit by surprise.
All main political parties are committed to increasing the number of new homes. In their manifestos ahead of last year’s general election, Labour committed to building 1.5 million homes in this parliament, the Conservatives promised 1.6 million, and Liberal Democrats 380,000 a year. For the 2019 election, the Conservatives promised to build 300,000 a homes a year by 2024.
Although there was £700 million of national funding for sewerage network improvements and pumping stations, the money is not to increase treatment capacity, Ms O’Connor said.
“What proportion of homes could be here in the south west region and where they are going we don’t know. Five years is a very short time line for us, so we need to reach out to local authorities to see where we can act.”
Cllr Holly Greenberry-Pullen (Lib Dem, Tavistock North) asked how the company would manage ‘water poverty’, claiming the area has the most significantly diverse demographic between wealth and poverty, yet she expects South West Water’s profits would remain high.
Mr Burrows said the company had £200 million in its business plan to address affordability.
The company has pledged to invest £2.8 billion in water quality and resilience up to 2030 and aims to reduce spills at storm overflows to less than 10 per year by 2040.
It followed court appearances for illegal sewage discharges and environmental permit breaches.
The committee was told that of the 90 storm overflows in West Devon, 33 meet tnew government targets and all storm overflow investment work would be completed by 2040, 10 years ahead of target.
Work is being concentrated on bathing waters and shellfish waters, which customers had asked to be a priority, of which none are in West Devon.
Pollution incidents had dropped to five in West Devon last year and there have been no serious ones since 2020, South West Water said.
All the 54 sewage treatments works in West Devon are compliant and the last failure was in 2017 at Mary Tavy treatment works.