Our Director of Operations, Jo Bradley, was very excited to be invited to take part in the panel discussion at the ICE Autumn Prestige Lecture. The keynote speaker was Nick Mills from Southern Water and he delivered a fascinating and inspiring presentation about the work that Southern Water are undertaking to reduce storm sewage spills and to manage stormwater more effectively. It is great to see the Water Companies delivering new and innovative solutions, and also embracing some low-tech common-sense solutions too. Nick and his Team are progressing well and, although storm overflows continue to be a big part of the UK water management landscape, these teams at all the Companies are working together and coming up with effective solutions for many aspects of water pollution all the time. It is also good to see that the Companies are sharing their learning widely so that they can all use one-another’s good ideas to improve water quality. Now is not the time for competitive secrecy and these teams are becoming an excellent ‘hub’ of solutions.
The panel discussion was lively and covered an array of topics, from the opportunities presented by citizen science to the need to monitor the effectiveness of solutions so that we can focus on those that work best. Jo challenged the panel to review the cost-effectiveness of the Storm Overflow Reduction Plan regularly. There is little evidence of the harm caused by overflows, so it is essential that we don’t simply forge-ahead and spend £56billion over the next decade or two without stopping periodically and checking that the investment is actually delivering improvements in river health. It is essential that we remain focussed on delivering improvements in water quality for the benefit of the river and marine ecosystems, and we need to check that this investment is actually doing that. If the investment is not delivering the improvements that we hoped for, then we must be courageous and change tack, perhaps shifting some of the investment to the management of agricultural runoff or the treatment of urban runoff. Stormwater Shepherds will continue to question funding decisions to make sure that stormwater management gets its rightful level of investment, alongside other sources of pollution.
