Water And Sewerage Infrastructure: Securing Resilience

The Victorians left us an incredible legacy of water and sewerage infrastructure across England and Wales but modern approaches to regulation have struggled to stimulate continued water company investment in major upgrades or new infrastructure. It seems now that times are changing – new water and sewerage infrastructure is needed. Government and Ofwat are pushing companies hard to deliver major improvements in resilience.

But Government also recognise the scale of the task – the financial and regulatory hurdles which must be overcome. And so Government are trying to help where they can. In particular they are providing access to a consenting process – in the form of the Development Consent Order ("DCO") regime – which is better fitted to the importance of and complexity inherent in delivering projects of this size and urgency.