In January 2009 we published for consultation our draft Water Resources Management Plan (WRMP) outlining our 25 year water resource strategy for managing water resources across our supply area and maintaining the balance between supply and demand. We have consulted widely on the WRMP which was sent directly to more than 70 organisations. We contacted all of our customers via the annual customer bill and made the consultation available on our website. Additionally, to assist people who did not have internet access themselves, we contacted every library service within our supply area to provide this service. The consultation period ran for 16 weeks and in total we received 11 representations from industry regulators, county councils and conservation bodies.
We have today published our Statement of Response (SoR) to these representations. The SoR outlines the main areas of comments received on the draft WRMP, how we will change the WRMP based on the comments received, or if we haven’t made changes the reasons for this. Within the appendices we have included a detailed table listing all comments received and our response to each one.
Alongside the WRMP, we published for consultation on the same day a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and a Habitat’s Regulation Assessment (HRA). The consultation period ran for 6 weeks and we received 3 responses on the HRA and 5 on the SEA. The comments received on the SEA and HRA have been included within the SoR. As well as producing the SoR we have written to each individual respondent on the WRMP, SEA and HRA and have provided detailed responses to each comment made.
Since the publication of the WRMP, Welsh Water has received sustainability reductions under the Habitats Directive from the Environment Agency Wales. These pose a major impact to our abstraction licences, currently on the rivers Wye, Usk, Lugg and Cleddau, and will change the supply demand balances in their supply zones significantly. We are keen to ensure that any revised Draft Plan reflects these changes and allows our customers and stakeholders the opportunity for comment. In June 2009, the Environment Agency Wales indicated to Welsh Water that following an internal quality review they intend to further assess these sustainability reductions. We must await the outcome of this process before we can publish any revisions to the WRMP and Direction from the Welsh Assembly Government on our next steps.
