The Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) welcomes the opportunity to provide evidence to Defra’s consultation on developing a National Policy Statement for Water Resources and proposals to amend the definition of nationally significant water infrastructure in the Planning Act 2008.
The Royal Town Planning Institute's (RTPI) response to the National Policy Statement on Water Resources is broadly supportive of this draft NPS, and believes that it can be strengthened by focusing on the following key issues:
* Placing greater emphasis on demand management and leakage reduction while supporting the twin-track approach;
* Providing a wider contextual setting, with water surplus and flooding considered alongside drought, demonstrated with a series of maps;
* Recognising environmental drivers as fundamental considerations to successful water resource management;
* Ensuring that local authorities and community engagement plays an important role, as not all infrastructure should be regarded as nationally important.
Click to here to read the consultation
Click here to read our response
