We’re tasked with planning the future of our region’s water resources along with ensuring we are equipped to maintain essential supplies in times of drought.

Water companies are required to prepare and maintain a Water Resources Management Plan on a five yearly cycle. The Plan sets out how we plan to manage supply and demand for the next 25 years. It examines strategic issues that affect available water and demand and details how we intend to maintain the balance between water supply and demand to ensure customers receive a continued reliable supply.

Statement of Response to the Public Consultation on the Draft Water Resources Management Plan 2024

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

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. 

Draft Water Resources Management Plan 2024

We have to prepare and consult on a Water Resources Management Plan (WRMP) every five years. Since our last plan was published in 2019 we have been working with our stakeholders and customers on updating our proposals to look ahead to the next 25 years and a draft is now ready for consultation. 

Our draft WRMP sets out how we will make sure there continues to be a secure supply of water to our customers in the future, while also protecting and enhancing the environment. It sets out how we plan to manage water resources, considering changes in customer demand, and continue to support the region’s economic growth and the wellbeing of those that work and live here.

The public consultation on our draft WRMP ran for a period of 12 weeks from 14th February to 9th May 2023, but the consultation on the Draft WRMP has now closed. Thank you to everyone who provided feedback. We are now considering all of the comments we received and how these can help us improve the Plan. We will soon publish a Statement of Response, detailing how we have considered all of the feedback provided.

The Customer Summary provides an overview of what is in the draft plan, and will help you navigate the main chapters of the plan (below).

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.

WRMP24 Customer Summary
1: Setting the Scene	1: Appendix 1 - Insights from the 2022 Drought
2: Our Region
3: Customer & Stakeholder Engagment
4: Protecting & Improving the Environment
5: Forecasting Our Supply Requirements	5: Appendix 1 - Outage Assessment Report    5: Appendix 2 - Supply Forecasting Methodology
6: Forecasting Demand	6: Appendix 1 - Household demand forecast 2021-22    6: Appendix 2 - Population & Properties Forecast    6: Appendix 3 - Water Demand in Private Water Supply    6: Appendix 4 - Non HH Demand Forecasting Methodology
7: Headroom, Baseline and Challenges	7: Appendix 1 - WRMP19 Headroom Assessment
8: Supply-Side Option Development	8: Appendix 1 - Supply Options    8: Appendix 2 - Interconnections Options
9: Demand-Side Option Development	9: Appendix 1 - Leakage Scenario Analysis    9: Appendix 2 - Regional plan Demand Side Options
10: Development of our Best Value Plan	10: Appendix 1 - Best Value Plan Methodology
11: Our Best Value Plan
12: Assurance
13: Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Report	13: Appendices A-Q - Including HRA, WFD, INNS, BNG, NCA
14: Isles of Scilly: Technical Summary	14: Appendix 1 - Isles of Scilly Leakage Estimation
Here you can download the data tables detailing our water resource planning information as Microsoft Excel spreadsheets ->	Draft WRMP24 Data Tables (xls)*   Draft WRMP24 Data Table 5 (xls)*

* 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.

Water Resources Management Plan 2019

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 by following the link below:

Water Resources Management Plan 2019

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:

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 by following the link below:

www.southwestwater.co.uk/commercial-services/bioresources

For details of our wider business proposals for 2020-25 please visit www.southwestwater.co.uk/waterfuture