What is a Drainage and Wastewater Management Plan (DWMP)?
Our DWMPs are long term plans that outline how we plan to approach and manage sewerage and wastewater over the next 25 years. They provide us with the opportunity to understand the impact on our network from things such as:
Population growth - new housing developments and increased occupancy of exisiting homes
Climate change - more volatile weather, severe rainfall events, longer dry periods
Urban creep - paving over urban areas such as parks and gardens, removed natural soakways for rainwater run off
We know that how we respond to these issues will have a huge impact on our region and communities. The decisions we make will impact on our customers and the environment that we live and work in for many years, so it’s important we get those decisions right.
Improvements to your wastewater network
Our Drainage and Wastewater Management Plan covers the improvements we’re making to our wastewater network up to 2050. We’re determined to be a service you can rely on to protect the environment, handle wastewater responsibly and plan for future expansion.
We know there’s a lot to do, and we’re promising that by 2050 we will have achieved:
To do this, we’ve split the region into 22 catchments. Each area has a specific plan of improvements and upgrades that we’ll be working on. Some of the major projects include:
Increasing storm storage
At times of high rainfall the water flow into our treatment works currently hits levels well above capacity. So, by increasing storm storage capacity, we plan to reduce the number of times wastewater is discharged straight into water courses (rivers, sea etc) through storm overflows – down to 17.5 spills per year in any one location by 2030.
Separating combined sewers
Upgrading our sites
Creating green spaces for wildlife
Our plan to 2050
Our first DWMP was published on 31 May 2023 and was developed in line with the industry framework.
You can read our plan below, as well as our customer and technical summaries.
Our Plan to 2050
Technical Appendices
Data Tables
Strategic catchments
Each wastewater treatment works in our region has an area that it serves – we like to call these catchments. Currently, we have c. 653 of these! To enable us to focus our planning we have split these into 22 larger catchments – this means we can manage our region as an entire system rather than looking at smaller challenges isolated to individual treatment works.
You can find out more about our plans for each of these areas using the map opposite - please click on the orange dots to read the plan for each catchment or the full list can be found in the section below.
Strategic catchments
Our plan for healthy rivers and seas
As part of our DWMP, we are running a programme of work called WaterFit which is focussing on improving the river and sea quality in the region.
