Who Owns the Water Demand Dilemma?

Rethinking Water Planning in the Face of Growth, Scarcity, and Regulation
Following from our ‘Development Services’ Group event on the 10th June 2025, our Operations Manager, Hannah Spencer wrote the following:
A Growing Crisis: The Water Planning Challenge
As we confront a future defined by droughts, intense storms, and growing water stress, a fundamental question arises: Whose dilemma is water demand, really? Is it the water companies’, developers’, regulators’, or all of ours?
The challenge is intensifying:
  • Infrastructure and behaviour change aren’t keeping pace.
  • Litres per head per day remain high, ESG goals are elusive, and housing growth pressures are compounding it all.
  • Regulatory, environmental, and economic drivers aren’t fully aligned.
A central provocation still resonates: “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” Our current model, heavily reliant on large-scale infrastructure, won’t deliver water security or sustainability on its own.
Water Neutrality, Nutrient Neutrality—and a Balancing Act
Meeting ambitious housing targets while delivering water neutrality, nutrient neutrality, and climate resilience is a near-impossible balancing act. Regulatory frameworks, retrofitting standards, and housing policies need a rethink.
What’s needed?
  • Better alignment across asset ownership and maintenance.
  • Earlier and clearer engagement with developers and planners.
  • Regionally consistent approaches tied to catchment-level planning.
From Planning to Action: Collaboration Is Key
Lee Dance from WRSE outlined a vision for long-term regional water planning. A national grid for water is nearly here, supported by water transfer schemes, adaptive planning, and broad coordination between stakeholders.
The new Water Resources National Framework is expanding to include:
  • Public and non-public water users.
  • Catchment environmental reduction plans.
  • Drainage and wastewater strategies.
  • Agricultural, industrial, and leisure sectors.
Critically, the main driver for water planning is now environmental improvement, not just population growth.
Reducing Demand: Everyone Must Play Their Part
Delivering on demand reduction targets—such as reducing leakage by 20% by 2027 and cutting personal use by 9% per person—isn’t achievable by water companies alone.
We need:
  • Customer-side action.
Together, these could deliver an extra 300 million litres/day. But uptake hinges on transparency, engagement, and acceptability—both for households and developers.
Reuse, Innovation, and Incentives
Water reuse remains underleveraged. Desalination, final effluent reuse, greywater, and blackwater systems offer viable options—yet face regulatory, financial, and cultural hurdles.
What’s missing?
  • Incentives for developers (e.g. fee reductions for installing reuse).
  • Checks and enforcement mechanisms.
  • Decentralised systems with “consumer pays” models.
  • Local ordinances and better guidance (e.g. like in San Francisco or Australia).
Innovation isn’t just technical—it’s financial, behavioural, and regulatory.
Enabling Water Smart Communities
The future lies in integrated, community-led water stewardship:
  • Embedding water into placemaking from the start.
  • Supporting developments that are water-resilient by design.
  • Empowering community land trusts (CLTs), localised reuse, and data-informed behaviour change.
But this vision requires:
  • Policy change.
  • EPC integration for water.
  • A national framework for water reuse.
  • Real regulatory momentum—not just ambition.
Final Thoughts: From Insight to Action
Water scarcity is not just a water company issue. It’s a systemic challenge demanding cross-sector collaboration. If we don’t act now:
  • Developers will continue to face misaligned incentives.
  • Customers will remain disconnected from their water footprint.
  • Regulation will lag behind innovation.
  • And the UK will fall further behind global best practices.
We need a mandated framework, investment in skills, and bold collaboration across the supply chain.
Because water isn’t just a utility—it’s a shared responsibility.