The Drainage & Water Recycling Management Plan (DWMP) is a long-term strategic plan that guides how we will manage, maintain and invest in our drainage and sewerage systems over 25 years.

 

Take a look at our first DWMP23 (‘Cycle 1’) which was published in May 2023.  

 

 

Our DWMP sets out how we’re planning for the future of drainage and water recycling across our region. While there is still more work to do to understand how we reach our long term goals, we’ve started to map out how we’ll keep our services reliable as our population grows and weather becomes more extreme. This thinking will continue to develop as we work with others, use better data, and build a fuller picture of the challenges ahead.​
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We’re designing the DWMP so it can adapt as things change.  Including new rules and regulations — ensuring we always make well evidenced, long term decisions that benefit both customers and the environment.​
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By setting a clear direction now, we’re strengthening the future of water recycling, improving how the system performs today, and getting ready for the challenges and opportunities of tomorrow.

 

zero untreated escapes, fail safe systems, recycled wastewater, integrated water management, healthy waterbodies, health & safety
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The aspirations for our DWMP have been developed across our business and with our stakeholders. Crucially, they are driven by, and align with, several other crucial plans including our Price Review 2029 (PR29) Business Plan and Water Resources Management Plan (WRMP). Allan Simpson, our Long-Term Delivery Strategy Manager, explains more in the video at the top of the page.

 

Take a look at our first webinar for this round of DWMP planning, we held a webinar to set out what we aim to do and how.  This webinar is the first of a series of webinars that will be held with our stakeholders. Please contact us at DWMP@anglianwater.co.uk if you'd like to be included in the future.

 

DWMP28 timescales

timeline with programme of works
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Long term challenges for our water recycling systems

 

Planning for the future has never been more important as our region is unique and faces a wide range of risks, now and in the future. Our DWMP Project Manager, Kelly Lorking, explains the challenges our water recycling systems face in the video at the top of the page.

 

As summarised in the video, our region:

 

  • Is susceptible to flood risk with 52% of our region falling within high-risk flooding zones, with 28% of land below sea level. Groundwater issues affect 50% of the region - this may increase as we reduce the amount of groundwater abstracted for public water supply.
  • Is more susceptible to soil shrinkage and ground movement, which can lead to our ageing infrastructure leaking.
  • Is experiencing more intense and erratic rainfall patterns, than we ever have done before, which can overwhelm our water recycling systems.
  • Continues to experience misconnections into our water recycling systems, contributing to hydraulic overload.
  • Has increasingly made customers aware on the importance of water efficiency, but reduced flow may increase the risk of blockages
  • Has a flat landscape of a highly drained nature, so we use pumped systems to transport sewerage over long distances, which can increase the risk of blockages and energy use.
  • Has many unique environmental features, such as chalk streams that have global importance due to their ecology rarity.
  • Is home to 15% of England’s population, our region includes four rapidly expanding cities: Cambridge, Peterborough, Milton Keynes and Northampton. By 2043, an additional 700,000 people are expected to reside in our area.

To help us understand these challenges we have developed our strategic context.                              This explores future regional trends that could impact our water recycling systems.                    These can viewed on the strategic context page.

 

We will use these future challenges to shape our solutions between 2030 and 2055.

Our areas of assessment

 

To gain a better understanding of our challenges we will use four geographical boundary levels to assess risk, aid collaboration and support reporting. These levels are: 

Boundary levels

Listen to Debbie Bell, our DWMP Lead in the video at the top of the page.  Explaining boundary levels in more detail and why they are important.  You can view boundary levels 1 to 3 on the interactive map of our region.

 

These boundaries have shaped our stakeholder engagement plans:

 

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We've initiated a regional group consisting of key stakeholders from across our region and will soon start engagement at the river management catchment area. We're also engaging with stakeholders at Local Planning Authorities, Councils and through catchment workshops organised by Water Resources East.

A water recycling options toolkit

Working with stakeholders, we've developed an options toolkit. This toolkit sets out what solutions are available to use in the DWMP, and any constraints and benefits associated with these options. Ed Richardson, our DWMP Options Lead explain the options toolkit in more detail in the video at the top of the page.

We're conducting the statutory consultation for our Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA).  Watch our video at the top of the page with Becky Stanley our Environmental Lead.  Discussing why the SEA is so important to the DWMP and the environment.

Plan alignment and collation has begun across internal and external plans across our region.  This will help us determine any opportunities for partnership working. Collaborating with local authorities and partner organisations gives us the greatest opportunity to jointly develop and achieve the best outcomes for communities throughout the region.

We'll be publishing our analysis of our sewerage catchment areas on our website, using our geospatial platform.  The DWMP team have been collating data to understand the issues faced across our region, catchment by catchment, this will help us plan accordingly.

For further information on our DWMP or to connect with the team, please email us at DWMP@anglianwater.co.uk.