Combined March 26 jw v2 - Flipbook - Page 32
Hayling Herald Opinion
Save Our Island
By Dave Parham
EVERY five years, Southern Water
must submit a Water Resource
Management Plan (WRMP)
proposal which details how they
propose to satisfy the future water
demand for potable (drinking)
water.
Save Our Island and Hayling
Island Resident’s Association have
submitted a detailed letter to the
Secretary of State for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs stating this
Southern Water WRMP should be
put on hold as it is an unnecessary,
highest-cost, shortest-lifecycle
option based on maximising the
financial return to Southern Water’s
foreign private equity owners, not
on the needs and wellbeing of the
nation.
Readers should be aware that all
of the water companies in England
are owned by foreign private equity conglomerates who up to 2024
have collectively incurred debts
of £50billion; Southern Water and
Portsmouth Water are both owned
by Australian conglomerate Macquarie.
There are two worrying aspects of
this WRMP to consider.
Firstly, in 2025, Southern Water –
on the basis of their WRMP – were
required by Defra to re-evaluate
all of the options to supply potable
water to their customer base.
There is no evidence that an open
review took place, and furthermore the original and questionable
Southern Water Hampshire Water
Transfer and Water Recycling Project (HWTWRP) – with its reverse
osmosis factory solution and utilising the new Havant Thicket Reservoir, remains the only Southern
Water solution offered.
There are a number of alternative
solutions available which would
offer lower cost solutions for perpetual water provision (see havantmatters.org/water)
n Repositioning river abstraction
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Havant Thicket Reservoir
points to the tidal point. This would
protect the river environments
whilst at the same time increasing
the volume of water available.
n Expanding storage both underground utilising aquifers and above
ground with reservoirs.
n Up to this point, Southern Water
has not prioritised fixing leakage as
a key objective. 22% of the potable
water production is lost through
leakage. Reducing leakage to a
reasonable 5% would significantly
increase the supply to almost equal
the demand increase estimated by
Southern Water.
Importantly, the above alternatives
will exist in perpetuity, unlike the
reverse osmosis factory solution
which would be co-sited with the
Budds Farm Treatment Works.
The factory site will not be sustainable throughout its planned life
and will require replacement every
40 years, a fact and an expense not
recognised in the Southern Water
proposals. A large portion of the
factory site and the surrounding
area is situated within Category 3
and Climate Change Flood Zones.
There are two other reverse osmo-
sis factory sites at Sandown on the
Isle of Wight and at Littlehampton
both similarly susceptible to flooding and replacement.
It is now proposed that the Havant
Thicket Reservoir will become a
buffer storage for Southern Water’s
reverse osmosis effluent conversion
process, to service Southern Water’s
customer base elsewhere.
Secondly, the 2026 Water White
Paper A New Vision for Water is a
very welcome, wide-ranging analysis of the problems, and proposes
to consolidate Ofwat, Environment
Agency and Drinking Water Inspectorate into a single new governing
body, to re-establish a responsible
and sustainable water industry for
the future.
In this Water White Paper, the
statement is made that water companies must conform to new Articles of Association which ‘make
the interests of customers and the
environment a primary objective.
This has now been delivered across
the industry, meaning customers
and the environment now sit at the
heart of their objectives and decision-making.’
It is clear to many concerned
residents and local support groups
that Southern Water have yet to take
on board this new vision in their
current actions.
n The Water White Paper requires
that the cultures of the water companies will need to change. This will
be a major challenge for the new
unified regulatory authority and the
proposed regional planning groups.
An increased number of experts
with the power to direct the water
companies’ endeavours will be necessary to force the required changes.
n The intent in the Water White
Paper to encourage a more normal investment environment, with
longer-term investors being sought
and move away from the fast-return
private equity model controlled by
the opaque private equity masters.
n An option to place government
directors on the boards of the water
companies should be legislated if a
satisfactory transition is not progressing in a timely manner.
n Given that customer trust in the
water companies is non-existent,
there is a very strong case to formalise a community interface with
the governance authority. Establishing a water ombudsman position
may help, but the existing model
of an ombudsman is based on an
ironclad bureaucratic process which
feels like preparing for a court submission. A fast, lightweight process
is required to handle issues that may
be serious and urgent.
We end with two recommendations
for the Secretary of State:
n Put on hold the Hampshire Water
Transfer and Water Recycling Project for re-evaluation under the new
Defra protocols as identified in the
January 2026 Water White Paper;
and
n Pause Southern Water’s Water
Resources Management Plan until
a revised and unified governance
structure is formulated to reassess
Southern Water’s strategic direction.
