Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
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10 | MARCH 2019 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk DWMPs 'should become compulsory' for drainage planning The Talk: Events D rawing up Drainage and Wastewa- ter Management Plans (DWMPs) should become compulsory for wastewater utilities and other stakehold- ers by the time of the next price review in 2024, speakers said at WWT's Wastewater 2019 Conference in Birmingham. Drainage and Wastewater Management Plans are the new way for all concerned parties to plan for the future of drainage and wastewater. A framework for DWMPs – modelled on Water Resource Manage- ment Plans (WRMPs) which enable col- laborative planning in the water resources sphere - was one of the main outcomes from the Water UK 21st Century Drainage Programme, which brought together water utilities, local authorities, drainage bodies and other stakeholders to how to solve shared challenges on flooding, sewer capacity, population growth and climate change. The framework was published in September and Defra is now consulting on whether to make it compulsory to draw up DWMPs. Mark Worsfold, Director of Asset Man- agement at South West Water and one of the Water UK leads on the 21stCentury Drainage Programme, told the Wastewa- ter conference that DWMPs were still "in their infancy" and that there may still be issues to iron out. However he said that he would favour making them a statu- tory requirement at the first opportunity, since the enactment of the legislation could then be delayed until the time was right. "It is appropriate for it to be statu- tory beyond PR24, because it will give all stakeholders a duty to be involved," he told the conference. He said that DWMPs would replace existing multi-stakeholder planning on drainage, which has adopted many dif- ferent forms and was previously given 22 different names across the country. The framework was the result of 11 months work starting in 2017, and a steering of transferring the planning approaches across to wastewater – I am glad the 21st Century Drainage Programme did not take that approach," said Bishop. He add- ed that wastewater planning needed to be more local, was more complex in terms of the stakeholders involved and that there was less scope for large strategic projects to solve problems. Despite this he added that there had been some "great leader- ship" on DWMPs from the wastewater sec- tor, and that this was reflected in how the Drainage and Wastewater Management Plans have great potential for bringing stakeholders together to achieve flood protection, resilience and environmental goals, WWT's Wastewater 2019 conference heard James Brockett and Robin Hackett report from Birmingham group would continue to meet every six months to review it, noted Worsfold. In an earlier session Trevor Bishop, former director of strategy and planning at Ofwat and now a director of Water Re- sources South East, said that DWMPs had a valuable role to play, especially since drainage and wastewater requires more integration and 'systems thinking' than water resources. "I am not a believer that clean water has all the answers and it is just a case Bioresources debate The conference saw an Oxford Union-style debate on the topic of 'Will the Bioresources Market be a success?' with speakers representing each side of the argument and the audience encouraged to vote on which side was most convincing. Before the debate, an initial poll found that 59% of audience members believed the bioresources market would succeed in its aims, compared to 41% who thought it would fail. A er the debate, the audience was slightly more in favour, with 62% saying it would succeed compared to 38% predicting failure. There was agreement that private capital needed certainty from regulators if it was to invest in new assets over a 15-20 year time horizon. Piers Clark, Chairman of Isle Utilities and the chair of the debate, commented: "There is a lot of innovation going on in sludge at the moment and the amount of collaboration is unlike anything that's gone on before. It's now about bringing those with innovative ideas together with those who can implement them and those that can provide the money."