Water disaster looms as South East Water warns it could’t meet demand for brand spanking new properties in Tonbridge and Malling | EUROtoday

A water firm already beneath scrutiny has issued a stark warning that it could solely present water for a fraction of the brand new properties deliberate for a big space of the South East.

South East Water says that present housing targets are vastly exceeding its infrastructure capability.

Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council is presently creating a brand new Local Plan, which goals to allocate land for 19,746 new residences throughout the borough by 2042, a transfer anticipated to extend the native inhabitants by over a 3rd.

A spokesperson for the utility agency stated: “From our review of the latest housing forecast figures, we have identified that we cannot accommodate additional growth beyond what was assumed in our Water Resources Management Plan 2024 in areas where we do not have a supply-demand surplus.”

They added: “Specifically, in the Tonbridge and Malling area, where we currently lack available headroom in our supplies, we would be unable to accommodate any growth exceeding our 2024 forecast assumptions throughout the entire planning period.”

The water authority’s personal administration plan was designed to provide 6,318 further properties in Tonbridge and Malling by 2042. The council’s proposed goal of 19,746 properties represents a 210 per cent enhance on this determine.

Councillors at Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council (TMBC) stated the warning should function a wake-up name on the Labour authorities’s plans to construct 1.5 million new properties by the top of this parliament in 2029.

Cllr Mark Hood, chairman of the Council’s Area One Planning Committee, stated: “The response from South East Water should be a reality check not only for our borough council, but across Kent and Sussex.”

“Water is one of our most precious resources – without it, our society grinds to a halt, schools close and farmers’ animals will die – as we have seen in recent months.”

A calf died of dehydration at Barland Farm in Tonbridge in January after the farm misplaced its water provide.

Cllr Hood stated: “Kent is sleepwalking into a water crisis, and when the water industry warns us that the situation is unsustainable, we need to sit up and listen.”

Cllr Lee Athwal stated that the issue was not over-ambitious housing targets, however years of under-investment in our utilities”.

She stated: “We need more houses, but we need decent infrastructure. It’s time to stop private companies making all the profits while people suffer.”

The water firms are statutory consultees when native authorities are drawing up their Local Plans, which implies that TMBC will now have to handle South East Water’s considerations earlier than continuing additional with its Local Plan.

But the water firms aren’t statutory consultees in relation to particular person planning purposes, which means water provide points are by no means addressed at that stage; it’s all the time assumed that provide is accessible.

Cllr Hood stated: “The water industry should now be included as statutory consultees for planning applications in the same way that Kent Highways and the Environment Agency are.

“We have a situation where water companies have a legal duty to connect to new developments – irrespective of whether they have the capacity to supply clean water or to treat their wastewater and prevent the pollution of our streams and rivers.

“Currently, planning applicants are required to demonstrate how they will mitigate the impacts of their extra homes on traffic, school places and even library provision – but not water. This is madness.”

Under present rules, planning committees are unable to impose circumstances stopping the development of latest properties till clear water infrastructure is in place, except they impose an distinctive “Grampian condition”, which the borough could now contemplate doing in respect of a present software for 1300 properties at Bradbourne, in Aylesford.

The fragility of South East Water’s infrastructure has been uncovered over the previous 12 months, with widespread provide failures affecting massive elements of its community.

In January, round 8,000 properties in Tunbridge Wells, Tonbridge, Maidstone and Sevenoaks have been left with out water, some for days, after booster pumps at storage tanks failed. Bottled water stations needed to be arrange and water shipped into some areas by tanker.

As nicely as disruption to companies, some faculties needed to shut, and pupils at Tonbridge Grammar School had their mock International Baccalaureate examinations postponed.

Thousands of properties round Tunbridge Wells had already had their water provide lower off for six days firstly of December, in what Prime Minister Kier Starmer described within the House of Commons as “a serious issue”.

Only every week in the past, the business regulator Ofwat fined South East Water £22.46m after finishing a damning investigation into provide failures that left 1000’s in Kent with out water in a number of disruptions between 2020 and 2023.

Ofwat calculated that 286,000 prospects had been affected in whole.

Meanwhile, South East Water’s response to TMBC confirmed that provide points have been doubtful throughout the area, not simply in Tonbridge and Malling.

It stated: “The current supply-demand situation in our Tunbridge Wells, Maidstone and Cranbrook water resource zones is causing significant stress to our supply.”

The firm didn’t say that it might by no means be capable to meet the additional demand from elevated housing numbers, however stated that it might want “to rerun our decision-making process”.

It stated that this “would help us identify additional interventions, such as new supplies, transfers, or increased demand-reduction programs”, however added that the doable options wouldn’t be obtainable till it had accomplished its subsequent Water Resources Management Plan – three years away in 2029.

The firm’s head of water assets, Nick Price, stated: “We update our Water Resources Management Plan (WRMP) every five years.

“We have started the process of developing the next plan, which will be published in 2029.

“We will be using the latest housing figures when creating the plan and will therefore accommodate any planned additional properties.

“Our current plan was prepared in 2024 using housing figures derived from the best available information at the time.

“Consequently, it does not reflect the significant uplift in the Objectively Assessed Housing Need that is now driving Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council’s draft Local Plan, which has risen to 1097 dwellings per annum.

“As confirmed in our consultation response to TMBC, this means that our current plan does not identify sufficient water supply headroom to accommodate the level of growth now proposed since its publication.”

A spokesman for Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council stated: “Infrastructure capacity – including water supply – is a key issue raised during the Regulation 18 consultation and one we take extremely seriously.

“South East Water, like all utility providers, have statutory duties regarding supply and we are seeking clarification from them on the points raised in their consultation submission.

“We are also engaging with the government’s housing department to understand any implications for future planning.

“This is exactly what this stage of the Local Plan process is for: gathering feedback and identifying issues that need further work.

“We will continue to work closely with all providers to ensure the draft Local Plan is informed by up‑to‑date and comprehensive evidence that reflects the needs of our communities and delivers the infrastructure required to serve new development.”

South East Water’s Water Resources Management Plan 2024 explains that the corporate used consultants Edge Analytics to calculate future water demand. There are a number of elements concerned in such predictions, local weather change being certainly one of them.

Housing and inhabitants progress are key elements.

Other elements included the speed of consumption per family. South East Water stated that charge had lowered considerably over the previous decade with the introduction of water meters.

On common, households cut back their consumption by 18 per cent as soon as they’ve to start out paying for the amount they use.

But, with greater than 90 per cent of its prospects now on meters, South East Water has little leeway to proceed with this saving.

The different massive issue is the quantity of water wasted by leaks.

Sometimes, social elements play a component. All water firms discovered that in Covid, with everybody working from house, the demand for water surged.