§ Mr. LidingtonTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what plans(a) her Department and (b) the Environment Agency have for new water and sewerage infrastructure to serve the Aylesbury area in the context of the draft Milton Keynes and South Midlands sub-regional strategy; and what the (i) time scale for and (ii) cost of such works will be. [172162]
§ Yvette CooperI have been asked to reply.
The Government are committed to ensuring that all the growth areas are equipped with the water and sewerage services and infrastructure necessary to guarantee the long-term health of these communities. To achieve this, we recognise the importance of involving the respective water undertakers and environmental regulators at an early stage in the development of proposals.
The Environment Agency has previously (June 2003) provided companies with draft breakdowns of the indicative housing numbers by sub-region and company area, to assist in draft Water Resource Plans work. But given the varying and quickly evolving extent of information available, the Water Resources Planning Guideline (issued by the Environment Agency to companies on how they should produce their water resources plans) is not prescriptive about how companies should take account of the sustainable communities plan. However, the Environment Agency report 474W "Securing water supply" (November 2003) states that it will work with companies to understand the implications and that:
'Where appropriate companies should ensure that they have included the latest proposals in the sustainable communities initiative in their plans'.The Environment Agency expects the water companies supplying the Milton Keynes/South Midlands area to provide their best available estimates of the impacts of the sustainable communities programme on their supply demand balance contained in their water resources plans. However, it is recognised that the next periodic review will have access to more definitive numbers.