We are committed to ensuring there is enough water for both our customers, as well as the environment.
We are one of many businesses that take water from the environment, but because of our unique position and expertise, we work with local farmers and landowners who also abstract water, to plan how they can be more water efficient benefitting both themselves and the environment.
Two catchments, River Cuckmere and River Stour, have been identified as a focus, and our target is to successfully engage with local abstractors through uptake of one or more of the following:
- Water efficiency audit and advice package
- Training package (related to water efficiency, water application, sustainable water use)
- Calibration tests (related to irrigation, pumps etc)
- Involvement in crop trials/other trials to improve knowledge in water demand management/water efficiency/water harvesting and storage;
- Provision of payments to use alternatives to reduce water demand or to fix water leakage; and
- Provision of payments for Ecosystem Services to improve farm infrastructure (to provide resilience by storing water on the farm, investment in grey water/reuse systems, measure actual abstraction and impact on flows, farm improvement to slow water flow and improve recharge).
How have we performed?
Work in year four has continued to focus on the engagement of license holders to understand their current activities and to offer water efficiency support.
During 2023-24 two site visits were completed in the River Cuckmere which means all license holders in the catchment have now been successfully engaged.
In the Little Stour, two site visits were completed during 2023-24 bringing the total number of abstraction license holders engaged in this period (2020-25) to five.
This additional engagement now means we have outperformed the 2025 target set by Ofwat for both catchments.
Year five of this reporting period will focus on the continued roll out of our engagement programme in both catchments and delivering further specialist technical advice.
You can find out more about our environmental work here.
