Waterwise has undertaken a useful analysis of demand management ambitions in the latest (autumn 2023) versions of Water Resource Management Plans.

There is a step-up in ambition on demand management, with the latest plans reducing per capita consumption by an average of 6.5% in AMP8 and by over 20% by 2037. There is greater ambition on leakage reduction and most (but not all) companies have programmes that will reduce overall non-household water use as well.

Waterwise says that delivering on the plans will make a big contribution to meeting the statutory water demand target to reduce the volume of water put into public water supplies by 20% per capita by 2038 but the plans are reliant on a number of key policies in the government’s Plan for Water being implemented, such as mandatory product water efficiency labelling by 2025.

The organisation also says that, despite the welcome level of ambition, funding levels for water efficiency remain very low, with companies typically planning to spend just 50p to £1.50 per annum per household customer, calculated after stripping out spend on metering and network leakage. The AMP8 water efficiency programme of £230m compares with the £5.4bn being invested in maintaining the supply demand balance in AMP8 and is at a similar scale to the planned AMP8 spend on prep-work for a single reservoir!