Cambridge & South Cambs Greens response to the draft Water Resources Management Plan from Cambridge Water
Cambridge & South Cambridgeshire Green Party have submitted a detailed response to the draft Water Resources Management Plan produced by Cambridge Water.
You can read our response in full here.
We have long raised concerns about the regional water shortage and its impacts on both people and nature. We're pleased to see that Cambridge Water now acknowledges the conclusion reached by the Environment Agency that the region is ‘seriously water stressed’ but we do not think the plan demonstrates a sufficiently urgent response given the climate change and biodiversity crises. The extreme weather fluctuations we have seen lately are set to become the new normal under climate change predictions and we need urgent action from our water company to cope with this.
We believe the priorities should be to:
- Rapidly reduce abstraction from the Chalk aquifer, including by capping abstraction at today’s actual levels;
- Take much more concerted and urgent action to manage demand, with actions that go beyond reliance on voluntary individual behaviour change.
We accept that measures such as surface water transfers and a reservoir will be necessary but these solutions must be strategically planned, clearly costed and transparent, and must be compatible with commitments to reach net zero and halt biodiversity loss.
The prevailing approach of pursuing economic growth at all costs is not appropriate. Water availability is a physical constraint and our priority should be to live within our means, through reducing total demand and finding sustainable ways to increase usable supply (for example through better rainwater capture). Currently we simply do not have the surplus water available which would be needed to supply the planned levels of development.
