One of my roles as a Councillor, sitting on Overview and Scrutiny Committee, has been to investigate how water is managed across the Borough. Given the issues that residents have reported to me with leaks over the summer, and then a lack of water supply over Christmas, it is an issue I have been closely involved with. It was interesting to hear from those who manage and protect our rivers and streams about the challenges faced and what more can be done.
I would like to see more projects that use nature to mitigate issues with drainage (e.g. creation of wetlands, planting of trees to aid drainage), as well as higher penalties to ensure water companies fix leaks promptly. Ensuring drainage on new buildings or extensions cannot be detrimental to surrounding properties needs to be closely checked too, so any run off doesn't have an adverse impact on surrounding properties too (again something I have worked on in our area as well).
Locally, I will continue to work with water companies to ensure that areas impacted by the supply issues over Christmas, securing alternative networks of supply (something raised in the provisional future plan by SE Water), so that we avoid residents enduring lack of water for many days.
I have responded to the recent consultation from SE Water on resilience for future supplies - more information on the work the water companies are doing to plan for the future can be found here: https://www.southeastwater.co.uk/about/our-plans/future-water - and I await the results of their consultation with interest.