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Water
The provision of water to meet Medway's future needs
A report to the Regeneration and Development Overview and
Scrutiny Committee, 17 July 2007
The Regeneration and Development
Overview and Scrutiny Committee published its findings and
recommendations after holding an eight-month, in-depth review about
the future supply of water for Medway, particularly taking into
account the number of new houses due to be built here in the next
20 years.
Some of the key findings are as follows:
- There are no further reserves of groundwater to be exploited
within Medway or the surrounding area and therefore local supplies
must be supplemented from further afield to meet future needs (70
per cent of Medway’s water is from groundwater supplies).
- The science of climate change is evolving and although climate
change scenarios are factored into water resource plans, it
continues to cause uncertainty. This may influence whether there
will be the winter "spare flow capacity" that is anticipated.
- At present, there is insufficient co-operation between the
water companies to allow strategic planning to be undertaken at a
regional level. There is a strong case for a south-east strategy
for the supply of water and the creation of a statutory body with
authority and resources to form such a strategy and direct the
water companies in its implementation.
- Appropriate supplies can be maintained but only if all the
measures currently in the water companies' plans come forward and
are delivered on time.
- When Southern Water attended a review hearing, although
contingency plans were mentioned briefly, no clear details were
given of what might happen if any of the projects listed fails to
come forward, particularly those that could supply the amount of
water needed in time to match the expected growth in demand in
Medway.
The complete document, including all the findings and
recommendations, is available to download as a series of pdf files
listed below. To use these, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader. If
you do not have this on your computer, please use our advice page.
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