Consultation on the Medway river basin catchment

We specifically asked about:

• Our Strategic Environmental Assessment Scoping Report
• Our selection of wastewater systems to take forward into the Options Development and Appraisal stage of the DWMP in the first cycle, and
• Our developing plans on each of the 11 river basin catchments.

Our report on the initial DWMP consultation is now available.

When we consulted on the developing plans for the Medway river basin catchment you told us that the key issues we needed to take into consideration were:

• The impacts of climate change and the pressures of growth, and requirements of water and nutrient neutrality must be cross referenced within the DWMP.
• Significant growth is planned and there are concerns over groundwater pollution, nutrients and the condition of ageing assets with little detail provided on whether faults are mechanical, electrical or operational.
• Providing the infrastructure requirements for growth is a requisite as this is a risk to the delivery of housing targets.
• Groundwater ingress to the sewer systems increases hydraulic overload, and egress from the sewers impacts on the quality of ground and surface waters and needs to be addressed.
• The level of surface water entering the networks must be reduced. Surface and foul drains should be separated to reduce capacity and nutrient issues.
• More transparency is needed on:
  • the timescales between identifying deliverables and actual delivery
  • the locations of wastewater treatment sites / storm tanks / discharge points
  • pollution events
• Sewer flooding and storm overflow discharges impacts on nutrient neutrality. Map where surface water enters sewers (as per Thames21) to identify opportunities to intercept flows and road run off and treat through SuDS. Funding should be available for SuDS implementation by third parties.
• Public education on FOG and unflushables.

How we responded to the issues raised during the workshops and the preliminary public consultation is set out in our Register of Stakeholder Comments.

We held a full 12 week public consultation on the draft Regional (Level 1) DWMP between Monday 13 June and Monday 05 September 2022. Our Statement of Response to the issues raised is published on the home page of our website, and a report and analysis on the consultation is published on the Have your say page.