East Cambridgeshire District Council Water Cycle Study Detailed ...

Stage 2 Water Cycle Study: Final Report
Sept 2011
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Cambridgeshire Horizons
East Cambridgeshire – Detailed WCS
treatment works within existing infrastructure. Several locations are likely to require upgrades
to (or new) infrastructure including sewer mains and pumping stations, these locations include:
• Ely;
• Littleport;
• Soham;
• Burwell; and
• Haddenham;
Further assessment of the capacity of the wastewater network in these locations has been
undertaken relative to the potential growth locations (housing and employment). Where
capacity is unlikely to be sufficient, new solutions and timescales have been provided.
1.4.2 Water Supply Strategy
The Environment Agency’s assessment of water availability 4 suggests that the principal
sources of raw water (rivers and aquifers) supplying East Cambridgeshire are at their limit of
available capacity without causing adverse impact on rivers and ecosystems that rely on them;
hence further abstraction and transfer in the future to support growth is unlikely to be available.
The Outline study concluded that AWS have adequate demand control measures and other
water resource options planned to cater for the demand for water created by low and medium
growth scenarios in East Cambridgeshire, but that the highest growth scenario is unlikely to be
fully catered for by the provision of supply as set out in AWS’s Water Resources Management
Plan (WRMP).
A single set of growth figures have been provided for the Stage 2 study, and these numbers
have been assessed in the study to determine whether sufficient water resources and demand
management have been planned, or whether alternative resource development is required at a
local level.
An outline assessment of the likelihood of achieving water neutrality at the end of the plan
period (2031) was undertaken for East Cambridgeshire. Water Neutrality is theoretically
feasible in the district only for the low and medium growth scenarios and will require significant
intervention (and financial cost) in existing housing and employment stock to reduce existing
demand. It is not technically possible to achieve neutrality if the highest growth scenario is
pursued.
A detailed water efficiency and water neutrality policy pathway has been developed in the
Stage 2 WCS to determine how East Cambridgeshire can move as close to achieving neutrality
as possible.
1.4.3 Ecological Assessment
There are three statutory designated sites which were identified in the outline WCS as being
connected to WwTW discharges in East Cambridgeshire – Wicken Fen SAC/Ramsar
site/SSSI/LNR, Ouse Washes SAC/SPA/Ramsar site/SSSI and Cam Washes SSSI. Of the
fifteen non-statutory County Wildlife Sites in East Cambridgeshire which are fluvial systems
and therefore potentially vulnerable to water quality changes due to treated effluent discharged
upstream, one (New River/Monks Lode CWS) was identified in the outline WCS as being linked
to a wastewater treatment works.
4 The Catchment Abstraction Management Strategies (CAMS)