Water crisis plan for UK puts ‘too much reliance’ on metering, says ex-minister
Government is testing new trading market in drought-prone Cambridgeshire
Plans to cut radically household water usage in England are based on unrealistic projections that installing water meters will substantially drive down demand, former environment secretary George Eustice has warned.
Ministers have set legally binding targets to cut household water consumption per head by 20 per cent by 2038 in an effort to reduce shortages, which are holding up business and housing development.
However Eustice, who spent nearly a decade as a minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, including two years as secretary of state, said a fundamentally different approach was needed to reach the targets.
“Current plans place far too much reliance on metering and behaviour change to meet that challenge,” Eustice told the Financial Times. “When you see some water companies suggesting that ‘gamification’ might help drive behaviour change, you know you have a problem,” he added.
The comments came as the government unveiled plans to test a new water trading market, which would enable housebuilders to offset their water usage through the purchase and sale of “water credits” to ensure they have a neutral impact.
The scheme is being trialled in Cambridgeshire, where water shortages are holding up government plans to expand the city as a life sciences hub.
The Environment Agency watchdog has already blocked the construction of more than 9,000 homes and 300,000 square feet of lab space because of a lack of sustainable water supply.
The £9mn credit trading scheme, which was announced in the Budget, requires the establishment of a new market framework and operator, which would match buyers and sellers of water credits.
Water usage would be monitored by water companies through their meters, which are installed in properties, with the data checked by the Environment Agency and the new operator.
Eustice welcomed the Cambridge pilot scheme, which the government said had been primed with £4.5mn for retrofitting commercial and public buildings with water-saving devices, but said it reflected a wider failure of water companies to make good on their promises to deliver savings.
He added that a fundamentally different approach was needed to reach conservation targets in other regions or they too would face stricter controls on development, such as the “water neutrality” rules imposed on North Sussex where all planning applications must show they do not increase water consumption.
“Unless other policy levers get used in a timely way, you end up with water neutrality and water credits as a last resort,” he said.
The implementation of the scheme follows years of political friction between water companies, local government planners and environmentalists over management of the region’s water resources.
Clara Todd, founder of Water Sensitive Cambridge, a pressure group, said there was a lot of “speculation and uncertainty” over the proposals and as “with other environmental markets it could be open to exploitation”.
Cambridge Water said in its latest five-year plan that it was aiming to cut household consumption to 110 litres per person, per day by 2050, through a programme of installing meters. It calculated that on average using meters reduced household consumption by 13 per cent.
However, in its response Cambridgeshire Council was sceptical. “We believe this cannot necessarily be achieved through ‘smart’ metering and educational work alone,” they wrote, adding there needed to be more investment to retrofit homes with water-saving devices.
In Cambridge, plans for a water transfer pipeline and a reservoir are not due for completion until 2032 and 2036, respectively, meaning water-saving measures are required to deliver additional capacity in the interim.
The National Infrastructure Commission, which advises the government on infrastructure, said in 2018 that the UK would need between 2.5bn and 4bn litres of additional water capacity in England per day by 2050 to maintain current levels of service. It supports the compulsory rollout of water meters.
Around 60 per cent of UK households have water meters, but only 3 per cent have smart meters that provide daily updates on usage. The rest are billed based on property values from the 1970s.
Water companies are planning to increase installations sharply over the next five years; they claim it helps them tackle leaks as well as raising consumer awareness on consumption.
In some water-stressed areas such as London, meters are already mandatory although social campaigners have raised concerns over the impact on large families on low incomes.
The Consumer Council for Water, a public body representing consumers, said that while it supported the installation of smart meters, it agreed they “wouldn’t deliver the demand reduction required”.
“Companies’ plans are light on how they will actually help customers change their behaviour to reduce their water use,” it said.
Lucy Nethsingha, Liberal Democrat leader of Cambridgeshire county council, said that water companies had a poor record of delivering on their promises.
“Most companies do the minimum government regulation allows, that is how they are set up. The problem is that regulation has been far too lax ever since privatisation, and that privatisation itself has failed,” she added.
Water UK, which represents the water companies, said: “Metering is only part of the solution. Most importantly, with rising temperatures and population, we should never again see the government block a reservoir because there is supposedly ‘no immediate need’.
“We are already having to play catch-up, with vital housing and economic development now being held back,” a spokesperson said.
Cambridge Water did not respond to requests for comment.