Effective water resource planning is essential to ensure the long-term balance between supply and demand is maintained. Every five years statutory water resources management plans (WRMPs) set out a company’s intended approach for at least the next 25 years. For the 2024 round of plans (WRMP24) these company-level plans will be supplemented by five regional water resource plans that will cover England and part of Wales.
The challenges facing the industry is increasing with multiple pressures including population growth, climate change and the desire to reduce water abstraction. To address these challenges companies and regional planning groups will be identifying ways of reducing demands and increasing supplies.
As well as challenges, there are also opportunities. These include looking at more efficient ways of delivering these benefits such as through water trading or third parties, for example. The opportunities are not only about doing things at lower cost, but also about making the best use of resources, improving resilience, driving innovation and delivering wider public value benefits.
This section of the website contains information about water resources planning and what we and the industry are doing to maintain reliable supplies in a way that delivers best value to customers and the environment. Our engagement on the last three rounds of water resources planning (WRMP14, WRMP19 and WRMP24) – including our statutory consultation responses can be found on these pages.