Rethinking Water Planning

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Why is the project relevant to you?

The Defra Plan for Water, had the strapline "our integrated plan for delivering clean and plentiful water". This overarching ambition has been carried over with the change of government. This consistent message shows that the government, and Defra Group, want to move towards more integrated management of water. The integration of planning, designing, and investing within the water sector is normally delivered when interventions have already been selected for their benefits to one function. We then look to 'add value'. This study investigates approaches we could instead take to consider the needs of multiple disciplines during the planning stages. The approaches explored have been designed to use existing statutory planning mechanisms to do this, so that all investment in the water sector considers the whole water cycle from the beginning.

Key messages for Defra

The integration of plans during the options selection phase could greatly improve delivery of environmental objectives and wider outcomes, the prominence of nature based solutions, and create efficiencies.

To allow more effective coordination at the statutory plan making level updates in guidance/regulations will be required to allow more flexibility, and so encourage greater collaboration and integration across plans. This will allow investment decisions to be based on their whole value to the water system.

This project has tested/trialled two different approaches to integrating the statutory water planning functions. Neither are perfect, but they do provide a useful evidence base and a basis for any other proposed approaches to be built on.

The Defra planning cycles (RBMPs / FRMPs) currently work on a six-year cycle, whereas water companies are required to work on a five-year cycle (WRMPs / DWMPs). This means that any approach designed to factor in the alignment of all four of these plans will have to be amended after each cycle due to reflect differences in stages.