Late notification of public meeting is typical of lack of transparency and action, say Greens
Greens are calling on Cambridge Water to take the crisis more seriously after the company failed to notify customers in good time about a public meeting.
At an online meeting tomorrow [November 7], customers and stakeholders are due to be given the chance to ask questions and challenge Cambridge Water about their revised draft Water Resources Management Plan and associated business plan for 2025-2030.
But Sarah Nicmanis, the Green Party Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Cambridge, said: “Although water industry regulator Ofwat expects registrations for these meetings to be open for at least 4 weeks in advance of the planned date, many people received notification of this meeting only one week in advance.
“Is this a tactic by Cambridge Water to limit the number of people who will ask difficult questions?
“Our water company must start to take the current water crisis more seriously.”
Ofwat requires the company to hold two public meetings to allow for scrutiny of its service, its impact on the environment, whether the plan will affect water bills and other issues.
In its revised plan, Cambridge Water points out that demand for water will exceed supply in 2029/2030 – only six years away - if existing policies continue.
However, the company is still planning only a 50% reduction in leakage from pipes by 2050, with a continued lack of clarity as to why leakage cannot be reduced more quickly. The company’s overall aim for a reduction in household water use remains at 110 litres per person per day by 2050, while other water companies have far more ambitious targets.
As local Greens explained in their consultation response, there is good evidence to show that 80 litres per person per day could be achieved in the same time scale.
The Greens are therefore continuing to call on Cambridge Water 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 through, for example, the introduction of hosepipe bans and universal metering.
Cambridge Water now finally recognises the critical impact that climate change will have on our water resources, noting in its draft business plan that “we are likely to see more extremes of weather, with 60% less rainfall in the summer and 30% more rainfall in the winter in our Cambridge region by the 2080s.”
But their targets for addressing the main challenges in this region, classified by the Environment Agency as “seriously water-stressed”, remain totally or woefully unambitious or inadequate.
