Things can only get cleaner?

25 March 2025

Steve Reed and Emma Hardy’s recent ministerial ‘growth tour’ points to increasing government recognition of how central water is to its missions

On 10 March, Steve Reed, the secretary of state for the Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), and water minister Emma Hardy went on tour for the week. In a PR extravaganza (#ThingsCanOnlyGetCleaner) they visited various water infrastructure schemes across the country to illustrate how the government is getting to grips with the wide-ranging water challenges it inherited, and how the next water industry five-year investment round – AMP 8 – will deliver improvements.

As expected there was a degree of spin to the accompanying comms statements coming out of Defra and some of the pledges felt more spin than substance. However, the week marked something of a shift – towards ministers publicly backing the work that will be essential to ensuring water is an enabler of growth and long-term resilience, rather than the usual hi-vis PPE photo opportunities. Whatever those of a cynical disposition may think of the bulk of the PR material, this is definitely a win.

Iconic water quality focus

On Monday, Steve Reed visited the iconic Lake Windermere – focus of a lot of recent campaigner activity. Defra’s headline was the ambition that eventually "only rainwater" would flow into Windermere. The activity supporting this? An Environment Agency, United Utilities (UU) and campaigner group feasibility study into how to achieve this aspiration.

Whilst the aspiration may be noble, it does little to develop a realistic public appreciation of what can be achieved. Options would seem to be a 48-km tunnel diverting all sewage from the villages and towns around the lake to Morecombe Bay (a similar scheme for Lake Annecy in France was referenced for comparison), or a complete transformation of toilet technology.

There’s an alternative that may achieve dramatic improvements for less effort and cost. Upgrading the various sewage treatment works to the highest levels of performance. Fixing all the leaky septic tanks. Putting in extra storm tanks and other measures so storm overflows almost never spill, except in the worst rainfall the Lake District can muster. But that could never be “only rainwater”. Without doubt, the ambition for such culturally important sites should be at the highest level, but this doesn’t always need to be boiled down to soundbites that overinflate public expectations at a time when UU’s bills will rise by a third over coming years.

The Tuesday saw more of the same, with Emma Hardy announcing alongside Welsh water minister Huw Irranca-Davies a £1 million joint English and Welsh government "comprehensive cross-border research programme" to transform the River Wye.

This would seek to understand the (blindingly obvious, intensive livestock) sources of pollution and pressures on this much-researched stretch of river, including looking at farming practices, new ways of improving water quality and understanding the reasons for wildlife decline.

If Defra’s comms team were hoping to demonstrate that the government is getting a grip on the problems, the early tour stages weren’t all that effective – there were lots of paper promises but nothing that offers any immediate impact. Both Lake Windermere and River Wye need wide-ranging, practical and, in all likelihood, politically quite tricky action.

Growing into it

After this point, however, the tour seemed to take a turn away from hyperbole towards practicality. Emma Hardy visited a water recycling plant in Bath as an example of how water industry spending will unlock growth and housing – a £35m upgrade to the Saltford works will provide extra sewage treatment capacity.

This kind of work is important in a range of locations, not least areas like Oxford where there are major growth targets and the sewage works needs an upgrade to be able to handle the additional load.

The Wednesday saw a visit by Reed to Havant Thicket reservoir, the first new reservoir to be built in over 30 years (Carsington Water formally opened in 1992). He highlighted how the government is driving water infrastructure improvement through the £104bn AMP8 programme, alongside its desire to streamline major infrastructure delivery through measures such as the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and a new single lead environmental regulator for major projects.

Efficiency urgency

Given the levels of spin during the early stages of the tour, it was pleasing that the government didn’t attempt to claim Havant Thicket as a project of its own creation. Instead, Reed jumped on the twin-track approach to water resources planning and delivery, highlighting the "urgent need" for water efficiency alongside reservoirs.

This was repeated on the Thursday visit to Cambridge and Rede Reservoir in Suffolk to understand the water resources challenges in the south-east region.

Defra’s spin doctors seemingly tried to intimate that the £104bn Ofwat final determination settlement will fund amongst other things the new Fens Reservoir (which, in actual fact, is not due until 2035; the funding in the AMP8 package for it – £154 million – is earmarked to help with getting it moving).

More encouragingly, however, Reed once again referenced the need for "urgent demand reductions". To date, ministerial comms on water resources has focused squarely on new reservoirs. Now the penny seems to finally have dropped that water efficiency is the enabler to give the government a fighting chance of delivering its new housing targets without sucking the southeast dry in a drought (in the short term at least).

It's now a matter of public record that this issue is important. This is a stake in the ground to show the rest of the government that mandatory water efficiency labelling, upgrades to efficiency standards in building regulations and regulatory enablers for rainwater harvesting and reuse for toilet flushing must follow at pace.

AI, networks and nature

Beyond the immediate growth issues it was also encouraging to see some coverage of the kinds of innovation and granular management that typically go unseen in amongst the policy spin and media humdrum that engulfs the water world these days.

From exploring how AI and machine learning can help inform active sewer management to reduce storm overflow spills, to using restored quarries as natural flood management wetlands, there was a broad spectrum of approaches on show.

Did the wider world notice beyond those already engaged with Defra and water issues? Almost certainly not but some of the messaging points to a positive recognition within Defra on the role of water efficiency and the desire to land this across the rest of government.

Could that shift in messaging beyond major infrastructure as the principal solution and towards more distributed interventions move more concertedly into the floods and drainage end of the spectrum too?

CIWEM, alongside Public First, have recently published a report on the impact of water scarcity on housing and economic growth, as well as public perspectives around water reuse, as part of the Enabling Water Smart Communities (EWSC) Project. Learn more about it here.

About the author: Alastair Chisholm is the director of policy at CIWEM