Urgent action needed to tackle pollution, flooding and water shortages
Cambridgeshire residents are facing rising water bills with proposed price hikes of 13-14%1. But we are confronted with polluted rivers and failing sewage treatment plants, dried up chalk streams, and both flooding and drought which are damaging agriculture, roads and other infrastructure and affecting our health. The water companies themselves predict an insufficient supply of water by 20302.
The Greens are therefore calling on the Council to declare full recognition of the water emergency, the impact that this is already having on communities, businesses and the environment in Cambridge, and the potentially disastrous consequences it is leading to.
Jean Glasberg says “The City Council declared biodiversity3 and climate4 emergencies in 2019, which have helped to raise awareness of, and accelerate action on these critical issues, including influencing planning and other decisions. We need a water emergency declaration for the same reasons. Global heating is causing extreme weather events which are having a serious impact on our water resources. Under the Climate Change Act 2008, water companies are legally obliged to take action to adapt to the future impacts of climate breakdown5. We need clear evidence that they are doing this.”
Urgent action is needed to address the current crisis, including full scrutiny of planning applications for large-scale developments. Full weight must be given to the evidence of the Environment Agency (a statutory consultee) in relation to water. The highest water efficiency standards should be required for any new developments, including mandatory greywater collection and recycling, a policy that the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service claims to promote but which is not being fully implemented.
Greens are also requesting the Council to write to the Rt Hon Angela Rayner to demand that planning matters in Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire remain under the control of the local authorities and asking for the Written Ministerial Statement on the Cambridge Delivery Group6, of May 2024, to be replaced with a new statement that requires greater priority to be given to water issues in local planning applications.
Cambridge has the potential to become a model ‘sponge’ city7, a concept being pursued in other cities, where the creation of places with multiple areas of greenery, trees, ponds, soakaways, pocket parks, rain gardens and permeable paving is actively encouraged. The Council needs to engage with the water companies, but also put pressure on them to cap abstraction from the Chalk aquifer at today’s levels, rapidly increase efforts to repair leaks, and manage demand more effectively. While the Council itself must do all it can to encourage residents to use less water, we also need accelerated introduction of universal metering and the prompt declaration of hosepipe bans when needed.