WET News

Regulating for all-round resilience F ears over droughts have driven nationwide debate over the need to ensure the resilience of water supplies in England and Wales, focusing minds on the importance of issues such as leakage, water efficiency and water transfers. By compari- son, wastewater resilience has until now attracted much less attention. There is no equivalent of the water resource management plans (WRMPs) for wastewater, and Ofwat acknowledged when detail- ing its PR19 methodology that wastewater planning was "less developed and less transparent to stakeholders". Nonetheless, climate change and a growing population represent significant challenges to both clean water and wastewater resilience, and the Water Act 2014 requires Ofwat to secure the long-term resil- ience of sewerage systems "as regards environmental pressures, • Ofwat director Trevor Bishop explains why the regulator wants to ensure wastewater resilience becomes just as central to companies' planning as clean water resilience 12 WET NEWS DECEMBER 2018 | wwtonline.co.uk INTERVIEW population growth and changes in consumer behaviour". The regulator has been making efforts to ensure the industry understands the need for well- developed, long-term wastewater p l a n s go i ng i n to A M P 7 a n d beyond, and Trevor Bishop, Ofwat's director for strategy and planning, is eager to see that com- panies understand the scale of the task. "Over the last 20 years, we've seen some big improvements in long-term resilience planning for clean water, helping to target best value investment for customers and the environment," Bishop says. "We haven't always seen the same on wastewater and drainage, a n d ce r t a i n ly l e s s c u s to m e r engagement being a case in point. "This is all about creating bet- ter parity between clean water and wastewater in terms of the ability to plan for a resilient future, and to make sure the services that are Trevor Bishop has beeen with Ofwat on long-term assignment from the Environment Agency since 2016 delivered to customers are the ones they want and need and are appropriate for the future." Bishop has been with Ofwat since 2016 on long-term assign- ment from the Environment Agency, helping to share knowl- edge between regulators, and is well aware of the potential conse- quences of failing to deliver resil- ience on wastewater. While the Environment Agen- cy's most recent Environmental Performance Assessment (EPA) showed the overall number of pol- lution incidents in 2017 had dropped to 1,827 from 1,902, there was a rise in the most serious (cat- egory 1) pollution incidents to 11, with 10 of those associated with wastewater. "The water companies have been making progress in terms of pollution incidents and the effects on the environment," Bishop says. " That's increasingly going to become a bigger challenge with

• Cover