Cotswold District Council - Water Cycle Study Phase I Study (Incorporating Water Quality Assessment - Phase II)
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Cotswold District Council - Water Cycle Study Phase I Study (Incorporating Water Quality Assessment - Phase II) August 2015 Cotswold District Council Trinity Road Cirencester Gloucestershire GL71PX JBA Project Manager Giovanni Sindoni 8a Castle Street Wallingford Oxfordshire OX10 8DL Revision History Revision Ref / Date Issued Amendments Issued to Draft 1.0 / 03/10/2014 Cotswold District Council Amended following comments from EA and Draft 1.1 / 23/12/2014 Cotswold District Council updated site allocations form CDC. Amended following Draft 1.2 / 09/02/2015 Cotswold District Council comments from CDC Amended following Draft 1.3 / 11/02/2015 Cotswold District Council comments from CDC Amended following Final 1.5 / 21/05/2015 Cotswold District Council comments from EA Amended following Final 1.6 / 07/08/2015 Cotswold District Council comments from CDC Amended following Cotswold District Council & Draft Final 2.0 / 12/08/2015 comments from CDC Environment Agency Final 3.0 / 24/08/2015 Minor amendments Cotswold District Council Contract This report describes work commissioned by the Cotswold District Council, by letter dated 23/01/2014. The council's representatives for the contract were Joanne Corbett and David Halkyard. Giovanni Sindoni and Paul Eccleston of JBA Consulting carried out this work. Prepared by .................................................. Giovanni Sindoni MSc Senior Analyst Paul Eccleston BA CertWEM CEnv MCIWEM C.WEM Technical Director Reviewed by ................................................. Claire Gardner BSc MSc FRGS MCIWEM C.WEM Chartered Analyst Alastair Dale BSc PGDip MIAHR Technical Director Purpose This document has been prepared as a Final Report for Cotswold District Council. JBA Consulting accepts no responsibility or liability for any use that is made of this document other than by the Client for the purposes for which it was originally commissioned and prepared. 2014s0815 - Cotswold District Council - Water Cycle Study Phase I Study v2-2.doc i JBA Consulting has no liability regarding the use of this report except to Cotswold District Council. 2014s0815 - Cotswold District Council - Water Cycle Study Phase I Study v2-2.doc ii Acknowledgements JBA would like to thank Cotswold District Council, the Environment Agency, Bristol Water, Severn Trent Water, Thames Water and Wessex Water for provision of data and advice. Copyright © Jeremy Benn Associates Limited 2015 Carbon Footprint A printed copy of the main text in this document will result in a carbon footprint of 511g if 100% post-consumer recycled paper is used and 651g if primary-source paper is used. These figures assume the report is printed in black and white on A4 paper and in duplex. JBA is aiming to reduce its per capita carbon emissions. 2014s0815 - Cotswold District Council - Water Cycle Study Phase I Study v2-2.doc iii This page is intentionally blank. 2014s0815 - Cotswold District Council - Water Cycle Study Phase I Study v2-2.doc iv Executive Summary Introduction In January 2014, JBA Consulting was commissioned to undertake a Phase 1 Water Cycle Study (WCS) for the Cotswold District Council (CDC). New homes require the provision of clean water, safe disposal of wastewater and protection from flooding. It is possible that allocating large numbers of new homes at some locations may result in the capacity of the existing available infrastructure being exceeded. This situation could potentially lead to service failures to water and wastewater customers, adverse impacts to the environment or high costs for the upgrade of water and wastewater assets being passed on to bill payers. Climate change presents further challenges such as increased intensive rainfall and a higher frequency of drought events that can be expected to put greater pressure on the existing infrastructure. Sustainable planning for water must take this into account. The water cycle can be seen in Figure 1 below, and shows how the natural and man-made processes and systems interact to collect, store or transport water in the environment. Figure 1: Water cycle study *Source: Environment Agency – Water Cycle Study Guidance CDC has identified 29 housing site allocations and 16 employment site allocations proposed in the forthcoming draft Local Plan (sites remain subject to confirmation). These sites and their associated demand for water supply and wastewater services were the key focus of the WCS. It is important to note that together with committed and allocated sites, the council has requested that the WCS also considers the impact of sites held in reserve. These so-called “reserve sites” are not allocated in the draft Local Plan and they do not count towards meeting the objectively assessed housing and employment need for the plan period. Individually, they are simply potential substitutes that may be brought forward at a periodic review of the plan if circumstances warrant their inclusion. Conclusions The water cycle study has been carried out in co-operation with the Environment Agency (EA), Bristol Water (BW), Thames Water (TWUL), Severn Trent Water (STWL) and Wessex Water (WW). Overall, there are no issues which indicate that the planned scale, location and timing of planned development within the District is unachievable from the perspective of supplying water and wastewater services and preventing deterioration of water quality in receiving waters. The WCS has identified where infrastructure upgrades are expected to be required to accommodate planned growth. Timely planning and provision of infrastructure upgrades will depend upon regular engagement between CDC, water companies, the EA and developers. 2014s0815 - Cotswold District Council - Water Cycle Study Phase I Study v2-2.doc v Development scenarios and policy issues Sites already with planning consent will account for virtually all planned growth up to 2019/20, after which point the additions from sites with planning permission tail off and the contribution of future allocations start to take effect. The impact of these future allocations is the focus of the study, and included: o 1 strategic site (Land at Chesterton Farm, Cirencester), o 30 preferred sites, o 21 reserve sites and o 14 economic development areas (2 classified as Reserve). The projected growth rate for Cotswold District, at an average of 380 per annum, is not significantly different to the annual rate of housing provision from the now defunct 2006 South West Regional Spatial Strategy and the 2009 Gloucestershire and Districts Strategic Housing Market Assessment. Consequently there are no “surprises” for water companies in the quantum of growth to be planned for in the District. The strategic site at Land at Chesterton Farm, Cirencester accounts for approximately 80% of all proposed housing growth in the emerging Local Plan. The capacity at Cirencester wastewater treatment works (WwTW) has already been upgraded to accommodate this and other growth in the Cirencester catchment. The remaining allocations across the District (approximately 500) are relatively modest in scale, though in small towns and villages the infrastructure will normally be sized to serve the existing population and therefore may have little spare capacity for growth. Legal agreements under the Town and Country Planning Act Section 106 agreement, and Community Infrastructure Levy agreements are not intended to be used to obtain funding for water or wastewater infrastructure. It is not, therefore necessary for Cotswold District Council to identify requirements for developers to contribute towards the cost of upgrades in its Local Plan. The Water Industry Act sets out arrangements for connections to public sewers and water supply networks, and developers should ensure that they engage at an early stage with the relevant water supplier and sewerage undertaker to ensure that site-specific capacity checks can be undertaken and where necessary additional infrastructure constructed to accommodate the development. Where permitted the water company or sewerage undertaker may seek developer contributions towards infrastructure upgrades. Upgrades to water resources, water treatment works and wastewater treatment works are funded through the company business plans. Water resources Within those settlements supplied by Thames Water (including all preferred allocation sites with the exception of those in Tetbury), the Water Resource Management Plan (WRMP) makes adequate provision for the forecast growth in housing within Cotswold District and therefore water resources should not be considered to be a barrier to the planned growth in the District. The wider issue of an increase in the forecast demand within the Swindon and Oxfordshire (SWOX) water resource zone is being addressed jointly by Thames Water and the Environment Agency. Initially this will focus on implementing and monitoring the impacts of demand management measures which are the focus for water resource management during AMP6 (2015-2020). In parallel, Thames Water continues to investigate the timing for future development of strategic new resources, which could include reservoirs and/or large-scale water recycling. Progress on this work will be published by Thames Water in its WRMP Annual Statements and in a Statement of Common Ground to be jointly prepared by CDC, EA and TWUL. In Tetbury (supplied by Bristol Water), the Water Resource Management Plan and comments from BW evidence that there are no issues with water resources to serve the planned growth. There are no allocation sites within the small areas of the