Agenda item

The Committee has requested a report to consider the management of our cities ‘water network’.

The Committee were joined by Tim Myatt, Head of Corporate Affairs, Steven Jackson, River Health Strategy Manager, and James Gudgeon, Pollution Reduction Manager from Yorkshire Water.

The Committee considered the reports provided by the Council and Yorkshire Water. Members highlighted issues relating to sewage discharges currently in the river Ouse and river Foss and asked about how additional housing planned in the Local Plan would affect this. Yorkshire Water highlighted its investment plan which was included its growth plan to account for more effluent from new developments and stated that it was important to ensure new developments didn’t have high levels of discharges. They also highlighted targets for storm overflows that Yorkshire Water were expected to meet by 2050.

The Committee highlighted the 64000 hrs of storm overflow discharge spills that Yorkshire Water stated were legal overflows. Members noted several times on dry days where these overflows were listed as down to rain and suggested that instead Yorkshire Water were using storm overflows as regular practice and not on only at times where there were storms. Yorkshire Water explained that they had targets to reduce discharges in half in five years. The Committee were told that dry day discharges are investigated by Yorkshire Water with issues like blockages being factor in causing discharges. Members questioned further whether these discharges were not purposeful on the part of Yorkshire Water highlighting 70% of cases from the live map data. Members highlighted multiple KPI failures by Yorkshire Water.

The Committee discussed whether Schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 should be adopted which would provide a legal framework for making Sustainable Drainage Systems (suds) mandatory in new developments. Officers confirmed that adoption would require a drainage plan, currently most suds don’t have to be formally adopted, if they were more features could be implemented and managed more effectively. Yorkshire Water confirmed that they were in favour of adopting Schedule 3. The Committee enquired as to whether the Council should ensure suds are included on new developments. Officers noted that the Council kept to national standards but that they would be happy to review best practice and were establishing meetings with strategic planners at Yorkshire Water to further link up work on flood and water management.

Members enquired about the challenges presented in relation to older water infrastructure and whether enough was being done proactively. Yorkshire Water noted that in their previous five-year plan they replaced 100km of piping and planned for 1000km of replacements across its network in the current five-year plan. The Committee enquired further about the rate of discharges and noted that the data appeared to show an increase in discharges. Yorkshire Water argued that improvements in data collection had affected the way the data can be tracked and that there were not enough years with improved data collection to give a fair reflection on trends, but noted that discharges were too high and that investment was in place to bring down discharges.

The Committee discussed whether the Council should pursue a charter for the Ouse and certification for York as a swimmable city. The Executive Member for Environment and Climate Emergency stated that she would support these calls but would not want them to be prioritised over actual interventions to improve the quality of York’s waterways and noted the importance of supporting the State of the Ouse report to establish the current level of the rivers water quality and options to improve this. It was also noted that bathing water status had other targets to achieve this status such as changing areas and appropriate areas for parking which could be explored but was not solely linked to good water quality. Yorkshire Water were asked if they would adopt the EU’s Urban Waste Water Treatment Standard and they confirmed that they could not commit to this at the meeting but would explore this and confirm to the Executive Member their position.

Members highlighted that York currently had around 2000 broken gullies but was repairing on average 80 per year, Members enquired as to whether more were breaking per year than were fixed and if a resident raised concerns of a broken gully would the timescale for repair be around 25 years. Officers noted that gullies currently had to be fixed on a risk assessment approach as there was insufficient resources to fix all these gullies, therefore in some cases work would need to be reactive rather than being able to undertake a proactive approach to maintenance.

The Committee enquired as to whether the Council and Yorkshire Water worked to ensure areas that would see Yorkshire Water infrastructure work would also be linked with projects such as transport improvements planned by the Council. It was confirmed that Yorkshire Water provide the Council with where it intends to invest over the five-year period. Members also enquired about whether it was possible for partner organisations and the Council to develop a map of assets and ownership to assist with interventions.

The Committee also raised concerns relating to the privatisation of the water industry, they stated that there had been historic under investment and about one third of current bills went to dividends and debt repayments. Yorkshire Water acknowledged that there were low levels of public support for the sector and that improvement was required and believed this could be done through their investment plan. Yorkshire Water noted that the reform agenda was still ongoing and the Council could engage with government on greater public control should there consider this appropriate. Members also raised concerns relating to what they believed was a bonus paid to Yorkshire Water CEO despite the company breaching targets which should have prevented bonuses being paid for the year. They also highlighted that no new reservoirs had been built since privatisation and concerns about the quality of paths and highways after work undertaken by Yorkshire Water. Yorkshire Water stated that OFWAT had confirmed that there had been no bonus paid to the company CEO and instead was a separate payment that was not a bonus. They also noted concerns relating to some path and road relaying and were working with the Council in relation to this.

Resolved:

                      i.         To recommend that the Executive Member for Environment and Climate Emergency explore how the Council could adopt Schedule 3 Flood and Water Management Act 2010.

                    ii.         To recommend that the Executive Member for Environment and Climate Emergency support the State of the Ouse and Foss report and explore whether a high-resolution water framework directive could be developed and adopted.

                   iii.         To recommend that the Council review the all powers available at Local Plan Advisory group to refresh the Local Development Plan to address drainage and standing water on new developments.

                  iv.         To recommend that the Council explore with partners to create a database of repair and ownership.

                    v.         To request that the Cambridge Suds design guide be shared with the Committee.

                  vi.         To request that Yorkshire Water provide Councillors with contacts for when their team is offline.

                 vii.         To recommend that part of the update to the Council’s Highways Infrastructure Asset plan to include work on gullies.

Reason:     To deliver healthy rivers and an effective drainage system in our city and safeguard our communities from flood risk or environmental harm.