Greens call on Cambridge City Council to declare a water emergency

Green party councillors have called on Cambridge City Council to declare a water emergency.

They say the move will help to influence decisions on planning, raise awareness and encourage action to tackle the city’s water crisis.

They point out that Cambridgeshire residents are facing potential hikes in their water bills of 13 to 14 per cent and that the water companies themselves predict an insufficient supply of water by 2030.

With polluted rivers, failing sewage treatment plants, dried up chalk streams and the growing spectre of flooding and drought, the Greens say the council should acknowledge the impact of the water emergency on communities, businesses and the environment.

Ahead of the Greens’ motion going before the council on Thursday (18 July), Cllr Jean Glasberg (Green, Newnham) said: “The city council declared biodiversity and climate emergencies in 2019, which have helped to raise awareness of, and accelerate action on these critical issues, including influencing planning and other decisions.

“We need a water emergency declaration for the same reasons. Global heating is causing extreme weather events which are having a serious impact on our water resources.

“Under the Climate Change Act 2008, water companies are legally obliged to take action to adapt to the future impacts of climate breakdown. We need clear evidence that they are doing this.”

The Environment Agency is currently objecting to large developments in the Cambridge region amid concerns that too much water is being abstracted from the chalk aquifer on which the region’s supply relies. Anglian Water has plans for two new reservoirs in the Fens and in Lincolnshire to ease the crisis, but these will not be supplying homes until the mid to late 2030s.

The Greens argue the evidence from the Environment Agency on water should be given full weight when large-scale developments are considered, and that the highest water efficiency standards should be required for any new developments, including mandatory greywater collection and recycling.

The party claims that while the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service promotes this policy, it is not being fully implemented.

Introducing the motion, Cllr Glasberg says: “We now have by turns either too much or too little water, as well as distressingly high levels of pollution. When residents see local flooding, they may think that our water shortage is over. Unfortunately, drought and flooding go hand in hand as dry hard soil fails to absorb water. Valuable rain fails to reach our chalk streams and instead contributes to flooding.”

The motion also calls on the council to write to housing secretary Angela Rayner to demand that planning matters in Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire remain under the control of the local authorities.

They want the written ministerial statement from May on the Cambridge Delivery Group - set up by the previous housing secretary, Michael Gove, to drive massive forward massive housebuilding plans in the region - to be replaced with a new statement requiring greater priority to water issues in local planning applications.

The Greens say Cambridge has the potential to become a model ‘sponge’ city - a concept being pursued in other cities, which leads to the creation of places of multiple areas of greenery and where trees, ponds, soakaways, pocket parks, rain gardens and permeable paving are actively encouraged.

And they want the council to put pressure on water companies to cap abstraction from the chalk aquifer at today’s levels, rapidly increase efforts to repair leaks and manage demand more effectively.

The council should do all it can to encourage residents to use less water, they say, and they advocate the acceleration of universal metering and the prompt declaration of hosepipe bans when needed.