Caring for our Rivers and Streams, Safeguarding Water Supplies and Addressing Flooding
Our water crisis is accelerating. Cambridge experienced severe drought in 2022 and 2023 and flooding in early 2024. The erratic weather patterns, generated by climate change, are well understood by Cambridge Water, the water supply company for the city and parts of South Cambridgeshire, which notes in its 2025-2030 business plan19 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.” Climate change in all its wayward ferocity also brings about severe flooding. Put simply, we now have by turns either too much or too little water, as well as distressingly high levels of pollution. Cambridge Water acknowledges that, with current growth proposals and the need for licence caps on abstraction to protect the natural environment, the region will run into a water deficit by 2029/3020. The targets set by both our water companies for addressing this, in a region classified by the Environment Agency as “seriously water-stressed”, remain woefully unambitious, indeed wholly inadequate, and incompatible with the February 2024 government ‘guidance’ on water scarcity21. Nationally, the Green Party is calling for water companies to be brought into public ownership22, since a resource as vital as water – essential for all forms of life – needs to be run by the public and for the public good. England should join Scotland, Wales, Paris and most of the world, and restore public ownership using the legal framework of special administration that already exists23. Meanwhile we can be taking action locally, recognising that there is good evidence to show that a more modest consumption of 80 litres per person could be achieved far sooner than the unduly timid targets currently set.
Water quality is also rapidly worsening, as failing waste treatment plants, under- resourced monitoring and enforcement agencies, poor regulation of nutrients and excessive use of pesticides and herbicides in farming, and an increasing population mean that rivers and streams are becoming highly polluted. Monitoring by the Cam Valley Forum, Anglian Water (the company responsible for waste water throughout the city and South Cambridgeshire), and other bodies shows that current pollution levels in our rivers and chalk streams are simply unacceptable.
The record rainfall in 2024 led to flooding in many parts of both the city and surrounding areas of Cambridge, damaging agriculture, roads and other public infrastructure, and affecting the lives of numerous residents. Flooding, the responsibility of the Environment Agency, and drought, the responsibility of water companies, are currently addressed in isolation, neither silo integrating with quality or wider environmental impacts effectively. This is inefficient with too many expensive, single-outcome solutions. Plans for large- scale house building will increase the burden, causing over-abstraction and pollution with negative impacts on the quality of life for residents and further threats to our chalk streams, trees and natural vegetation as the water table falls and becomes more polluted.
Green-led Councils would strive to:
Reduce over-abstraction by:
- opposing development unless there is certainty of adequate water. We strongly support the EA’s insistence on a pause on certain planning proposals until there is assurance of suitable mechanisms to provide an adequate water supply, for both the residents of Greater Cambridge and the natural environment on which we depend.
- requiring the highest water efficiency credentials for all new developments, including mandatory greywater collection and recycling (while recognising that the legislation to implement this is not yet adequate);
- engaging with water companies, alongside expert community groups, such as the Cam Valley Forum24, and campaigning groups such as the Friends of the River Cam25, to accelerate solutions to over-abstraction, supporting those that are strategically planned, clearly costed and transparent, and compatible with commitments to reach net zero and halt biodiversity loss;
- putting pressure on the water companies to take more concerted, urgent and innovative action to:
- rapidly reduce abstraction from the Chalk aquifer, including by capping abstraction at today’s actual levels;
- manage demand, avoiding reliance on voluntary individual behaviour change, through actions such as the prompt declaration of hosepipe bans, the accelerated introduction of universal metering and proactive encouragement of water collection and recycling e.g. water butt installation; and rapidly increase efforts to repair leaks.
- opposing the plans for a water offsetting and credits system; it has become clear from carbon credit markets and concerns about the similar Biodiversity Net Gain approach that it is very hard to regulate and evaluate such mechanisms. As a result, they are highly unlikely to achieve the desired outcome in the short to medium term.
Reduce pollution by:
- supporting the public pressure on Anglian Water to invest urgently in updating its smaller, older sewage treatment works and to halt illegal dumping of sewage into rivers; all wastewater installations and infrastructure that discharge into chalk streams and rivers should be upgraded to this end.
- supporting Cam Valley Forum recommendations for investment in monitoring (particularly using Event Duration Monitors [EDMs]) and increased stormwater storage.
Mitigate flooding by:
- pushing for the prioritisation of nature-based solutions, including restoration of flood plain habitats and appropriate vegetation management to slow down surface run-off, reduce the risk of flash flooding and minimise pollution26;
- promoting the concept of, and principles behind the ‘sponge’ city and region27 approach: i.e. the creation of places with multiple areas of greenery, trees, ponds, soakaways, pocket parks, rain gardens and permeable paving to allow water to drain away, and with measures to store rainwater and runoff (e.g. water butts).
Finally, Green-led councils would continue to oppose the unnecessary relocation of the Cambridge Waste Water Treatment Plant into the Green Belt.
