NEWS EXTRA
LAST MONTH WATERWISE, the UK’s leading independent organisation dedicated to reducing water waste across the UK, held its first Water Reuse Summit in collaboration with event sponsors Stormsaver, Marsh Industries and Affinity Water’s Project Zero. Hosted by Claire Spendley, head of finance and commercial services at Waterwise, the Summit brought together voices from across the water sector to discuss the challenges facing the UK’s water supply and what we can do to address them.
Speakers included Waterwise CEO Nicci Russell, MP for Doncaster Lee Pitcher, George Warren of Anglian Water, Stuart Stevenson from Affinity Water, Michael Farnsworth of Stormsaver and Steve Boyer from Marsh Industries. Speakers were then joined for the final panel by Professor Amin Al-Habaibeh of Nottingham Trent University and the MP for Shrewsbury, Julia Buckley. The event attracted senior representatives from leading industry organisations, including the Future Water Association, the Builders Merchants Federation, British Water and the National Self Build Centre. Alongside the presentations, attendees took part in group discussions exploring the challenges the country faces and how best to prevent further decline in water availability.
The importance of water
Without significant changes to the way we use and manage water, England could face a 5 billion litre public water shortage by 2055, Russell said.
“I’d like you to think of a different Tuesday to today. A day when you wake up all fired up, but then you go downstairs and the water’s off. Then you speak to your head of operations, and they say the water is off across all your buildings and sites, so you have to send everybody to work from home. But your staff can’t concentrate at home either because the water’s off across the whole region and they’re concentrating on finding water for drinking, washing, and cooking. So, in the end, you have to cancel everything.
“It’s actually quite stressful. The focus of your leadership on a day like that would totally change. And that is because nothing happens
WATER REUSE without water.”
She explained that, while households use water at home and at work as if it will never run out, water is running out right across the UK. “We only had to look out our window this summer to see the climate emergency. We’re on our third drought in five years. “The Met Office is telling us that this weather is no longer exceptional. It is the new normal, and the climate change committee is telling us that our water systems aren’t even fit for the current climate, let alone what’s coming,” she said, adding that this is something Waterwise has been sounding the alarm about for years. “The brilliant news is there is something we can do about it. We’re all here today to plan how reuse can save water in every area of our lives. Let’s plan today how we can value every drop as if our lives depended on it. There’s work here to do for everyone.” The water industry stands at the precipice of the most significant change in its landscape since privatization back in 1989, according to Pitcher, currently the parliamentary private secretary
October 2026
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CHALLENGES ADDRESSED
The Waterwise Water Reuse Summit brought together specialists from across the field of water conservation. Oliver Stanley reports.
at DEFRA. He covered the government’s recent actions to build more sustainable infrastructure for water usage, and explained what needs to be done to take this work further.
“The average person in the UK uses about 144 litres of water per day, and the government has set a target to reduce that consumption to around 110 litres per person per day by 2050,” he said. “Within the last year alone the Government has brought forward the landmark Water Special Measures Act. Introduced in February 2025, the Act adds requirements for pollution incident reduction plans, makes it a criminal offence to obstruct regulatory investigations and gives regulators tougher enforcement powers. “Then four months later, we saw the Independent Water Commission led by Sir Jon Cunliffe, which published its final reports following engagement with nearly 250 organisations, including Waterwise, and over 50,000 responses to its call for evidence.”
He explained that the
Commission set out comprehensive recommendations for reform,
and that in January 2026, the government published a new vision for water. This was a White Paper which responded to and built upon Sir Jon’s report, committing to establishing a new single regulator to replace the current fragmented system. It also included the consolidation of over 20 planning processes into two core frameworks, and £104bn private investment for 2025 to 2030.
However, Pitcher also asked: “What are we doing specifically around rain water, rainwater harvesting and how are we looking to take that forwards?”
He explained that, in the Water White Paper, the Government committed to help drive reuse and rainwater management uptake for large non-household developments and larger water users as part of the planning process on dual pipe supply systems. This will mean the potential to save around 150 million litres of both potable and treated non-potable water by 2030 both. “As such, we’re reviewing the regulations related to dual pipe water reuse systems using
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