6. Statement by the Minister for Climate Change: Water Quality

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:09 pm on 15 November 2022.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 5:09, 15 November 2022

Thanks, James. I'll do my best with that. It's quite a long list of things.

Just to say that planning for drainage and sewerage services has a lot of interdependencies. Water companies have got to meet their statutory duties under environmental legislation. They have to work with the local authorities who have responsibility for flood prevention and significant drainage assets, and they have to work with landowners and farmers. So, you can see immediately the need for a cross-sector approach. We obviously want the sewerage and drainage infrastructures to all be well managed and maintained in an integrated way, with sufficient capacity to manage the demand placed on it. That's a long-term, collaborative plan to work out how we can do that, and that's why we had the summit, back in the summer, and that's why we're saying to each sector to work with us to come up with plans. So, we have a whole range of task and finish groups going on as a result of the summit, in which we are expecting each sector to say what it can do to help us with that. In the meantime, as I said, we've been investing in a number of other things. So, the programme for government committed to delivering nature-based flood management in all major river catchments, expanding wetland and woodland habitats in the process. So, we're supporting natural flood-management projects right across Wales, with £3 million in grant funding provided through the programme. So, I think that's what you're referring to there. Those are in a very large range of river catchment areas across Wales, James, so you'd have to tell me which ones you were particularly interested in. If you write in, I can give you a list of them; I don't have it about my person. It's a long, long list. So, write in if you want some detail on that in your own area, or wherever you want it for. 

The programme, as I said in previous answers, is going to reduce flood risk to around 800 properties, but it's much wider than that, because it improves water quality and creates habitat and aids land management. So, these are multiple benefits for a single spend, which we're very keen on. We've also provided funding for 15 projects delivered by 10 different risk management authorities across Wales to look at natural solutions, rather than hard culverting, for example. And the Four Rivers for LIFE project, which I mentioned earlier, which I went down to launch in Carmarthenshire, for example, that's well worth going to have a look down there in the college. They have a display there, and that's talking about things like—it's about 500 km of river that's going to be looked at. And that's doing things like—in the past, people have straightened the river, which would appear to give you more manageable land, but in fact what it does is make the river run much faster and takes away some of the benefits. So, actually, 're-meandering', it's called, re-meandering the river. I think virtually everyone remembers oxbow lakes from geography; it's literally the only thing that people remember from most geography lessons. But, re-meandering the rivers and putting back those natural things like that slows the river flow down, allows the river to spread out into the land where necessary without major flooding, and has a real benefit you can see immediately in biodiversity terms and for the landowners. So, I'm very happy if you want to write in to me and ask for details of these specific projects, but we're very proud of what's been achieved.