Unlocking the UK’s growth plans through water reuse

23 April 2025

A growing population and ambitious housing targets are putting England’s strained water infrastructure under pressure. On this month’s Planet Possible, Niki Roach speaks to George Warren from Anglian Water about how innovative water reuse and better stewardship could unlock sustainable housing growth

Water scarcity in the south and east of England alone could lead to £25 billion of lost revenue due to delays in housing growth. This is according to recently published research commissioned by Enabling Water Smart Communities (EWSC), a project supported by Ofwat through the regulator’s Water Breakthrough Challenge fund.

The scale of the challenge is intimidating, but the report found that reducing household water use by around 30 per cent could recoup the majority of those losses, unlocking the government’s ambitious housing plans.

This month on CIWEM’s Planet Possible podcast, host Niki Roach is joined by George Warren, integrated water manager at Anglian Water, one of the lead partners on EWSC. They discuss the barriers and enablers to implementing measures like rainwater harvesting in new housing developments.

If you enjoy this taster, you can listen to the full conversation here or search for 'Planet Possible' in your favourite podcast app. Follow the podcast to stay updated on our monthly deep dives into pressing environmental challenges.

Their discussion highlights how waste can be turned into valuable resources, whether through community-driven initiatives or industry-led innovation in the water sector, and explores the growing momentum behind circular economy projects and how individuals, businesses, and the water industry are rethinking waste and unlocking its potential.

Now, over to Niki and George…

Niki Roach: Tell us how projected water scarcity will impact on the government’s plans for growth.

George Warren: In essence, there’s not enough water in the network. The water industry has a legal duty to meet housing growth, and each water company produces a water resources management plan based on projected growth. Those water resource management plans were created but then we had a change in government, which brought an additional 1.5 million homes on top of that.

So it's not that the developments won’t happen – it’s that they can’t happen at the rate the government would ideally like. We're about to build a lot of reservoirs across the country, but we also need to start being sensible about the water consumption that we use within buildings. Flushing toilets with world class drinking water feels like a waste, and one that in a couple of decades, we'll be going, ‘I can't believe we did that’.

NR: So it’s an opportunity, with so many new homes, to think a bit more critically about what quality water we need where. Talk to me about some of the solutions that the Enabling Water Smart Communities project is coming out with.

GW: Integrated water management is done elsewhere in the world but it's just escaping our ability to deliver in the UK. One of the major reasons is the issue of ‘wholesome water’. There are regulations in place which prevent water companies from providing anything other than what is classified as wholesome water, which is effectively potable water, for domestic use in properties. I can understand why that was put in place: public health. But it’s really important that we can utilise a lesser quality of water because it is a more sustainable option. It's been a requirement in San Francisco for any new build to capture all rainwater that lands on their roofs.

Diagram of the Integrated Water Cycle

As part of the work that we've done as part of Enabling Water Smart Communities we’ve calculated that it’s about £1,800 extra per property to deliver community-scale storm water reuse compared to £4,000 pounds for individual rainwater harvesting units.

NR: What does community-level rainwater harvesting involve?

GW: Rainwater harvesting is a very clean source of water. The only pollutant is any detritus that ends up on your roof. Stormwater harvesting includes impermeable surfaces within the development, so that could be roads, driveways and the like.

The reason that we look at stormwater harvesting is that you can utilise the drainage infrastructure that you’re looking to design – which I very much hope would be sustainable drainage. Stormwater harvesting will have the potential for other nasties to get in, but it would include for additional treatment – just not to the same degree that we would need to get it to drinking water standards.

NR: What is coming out of Enabling Water Smart Communities from a stewardship perspective? Who should be looking after these assets?

GW: There are so many examples across the UK where stormwater or rainwater harvesting or greywater recycling has been installed within developments and the systems have effectively been mothballed. That was typically down to a stewardship issue. There were systems given over to private facilities management companies to manage. There's an ongoing cost associated with the operation and maintenance of those systems, and I could understand why they looked at those and said, ‘We could just turn that off and use mains water. It doesn't cost very much, so why would I keep that going?’

It needs to have a clear regulator associated with non-potable water, and then we go from there. It feels like the water utility industry could be the right people to manage it. If I was to have a property in one of these developments, I would certainly just want to be paying one bill. I just want to make sure that when I flush my toilet, it flushes, and when I turn on my tap, it's running with water. That's the approach that we need to be taking. We need to ensure that people are aware of the fact that it's a different quality and that is appropriately labelled within the property, so that when you're looking to redo anything within your house, that it's very clear that you're not going to be connecting it to your tap.

NR: I know you've talked to the public as part of Enabling Water Smart Communities – what kind of reactions have you got?

GW: We did an online survey where we interviewed over 4,000 UK residents, and also then did a deep dive in Colchester, where we interviewed over 100 people face-to-face. It was exceptionally positive towards water reuse. It does vary depending on the source: rainwater, very much pro it; less so when it comes to the reuse of toilet water – black water recycling – but still positive. Positive messaging tended to be around cost savings, environmental reasons and common sense.

We have a number of developers as part of our project board. Developers on the whole get it, but they tend to say, ‘Make us do it’. There's not really a driver to do so unless there is a planning requirement. Certainly when you see across the globe where you've had the greatest uptake of this, it's because they've mandated it. It feels as though there is an opportunity there.

There’s much more where that came from – listen to the full conversation here. You can search for 'Planet Possible' in your favourite podcast app.

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