Southern Water share this latest appeal to customers. Ed
Southern Water is asking customers to have their say on our long-term plan to secure high quality drinking water for the South East over the next 50 years.
Our draft Water Resources Management Plan sets out how we will continue to safeguard supplies in the coming decades and cope with a range of scenarios, from population growth to climate change.
Five year chunks
The plan, which is available to view online, is detailed in five-year chunks to ensure it can adapt to the changing needs of homes, businesses, communities and industry up until 2070.
In Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, shorter-term plans for 2020-2025 will see us reducing leaks, increasing the number of homes with meters to encourage water saving and working towards achieving Target 100, which will help us all reduce our personal water usage to 100 litres a day by 2040.
Some of the options
In the longer-term, options for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight include:
- Building a desalination plant on the Solent to clean seawater for use as drinking water, along with a new pipeline to transfer this water between Winchester and Southampton.
- A water re-use scheme near Marchwood to supply an industrial customer.
- Receiving an extra 21 million litres of water each day from Portsmouth Water through a new pipeline, sourced from developing a new reservoir near Havant.
- Creating a network of pipes to connect two water treatment works and the Andover, Winchester and Southampton East supply zones.
Other options across the Southern Water region may include further new desalination plants and reservoirs and greater collaboration with other water companies to create sustainable supplies.
Securing resilience in water supply
Southern Water’s Water Strategy manager, Meyrick Gough, said:
“Fresh, good quality water is vital for our daily lives and it’s only right we should prepare effectively to ensure we safeguard this precious resource well into the future. Our plan is to secure resilience in our water supply, ensuring we’re well prepared to deal with any eventuality – from extreme climate change at one end, to a future where we’re all more water efficient at the other.
“Our customers play a huge part in helping shape the way we manage water supply, and we very much welcome their input as we continue to develop our future plans.”
Customers have until 28th May to have their say on the document and we’ll donate £1 to WaterAid for every response we receive.
Image: sca-svenska-cellulosa-aktiebologet under CC BY 2.0
