To address the pressing issues of drainage and wastewater management requires investment, political will, collaboration across the economy, and personal—as well as industry-wide—accountability. It requires, too, that those charged with effecting change should counter a couple of misplaced assumptions about this nation’s relationship with water. The first assumption is that mitigation measures are (to forgive the avoidable pun) a drain on capital. The second is that this is a water-rich country that can be absented from radical water management solutions.
These were among the insights to emerge from the second in a series of Prospect expert roundtables exploring what Britain can do to strengthen its resilience as it faces today’s most urgent challenges. The discussion took place in early February and was convened in partnership with Southern Water.
Back to those misplaced assumptions. On the first, one expert voice in attendance questioned the current framing of resilience as “a cost centre”. Instead, he said, we should treat it “as an economic multiplier” given that “every pound spent on resilience today would avoid multiple pounds in the future [as well as] pollution, fines, reputational damage and lost productivity.”
On the second, one roundtable attendee said it was time to “flip the narrative” so that “people understand we’re not a wet country, and we can’t take our water resources for granted.” Another invoked “third box thinking” to address the premise that just because the UK is liveable today doesn’t mean that by taking the same strategic approach as before, it will be liveable tomorrow. Third box thinking is a framework that encourages organisations to abandon legacy practices likely to inhibit future progress.
In the spirit of challenging conventional wisdom, other delegates suggested it was time, too, for a broader view of drainage and wastewater that goes beyond the roles and responsibilities of the water companies. One industry insider observed: “If you look at the reasons rivers are not achieving good ecological status… you’ll see that the water sector is [partly] responsible… but so is agriculture, road runoff and housing.” By acknowledging the accountability of other sectors, better solutions to drainage and wastewater issues present themselves. Rather than investing in more storm tanks, for example, first ensure there is sustainable drainage in the appropriate farming, highway or residential setting.
To get a sense of the potential size of the resilience challenge, consider that the insurance industry paid out £900m across the first three quarters of 2025 in weather related claims. Consider, too, that there are six million properties at risk of flooding in England. Many homeowners remain unaware of the risks.
The introduction of flood performance certificates is likely to concentrate minds, but a wider programme of education and awareness is required. It is a about personal responsibility as well as industry and government responsibility, argued more than one speaker. The conversation, meanwhile, must move to sustainable drainage systems (SuDS). These are nature-based solutions designed to reduce flood risks, improve water quality, and manage surface water runoff.
Investment is incoming. As the government’s water white paper, published in January, notes, £11bn will be spent in England over the next five years on improving around 2,500 storm overflows. Meanwhile, a little under £5bn is being invested in upgrades at wastewater treatment works to remove phosphorus, a cause of nutrient pollution. Both initiatives are part of a wider capital programme.
An example of a nature-based solution is in Mansfield, home of the UK’s largest flood resilience scheme
Projects built around nature-based solutions offer hope. One example is in Mansfield, home of the UK’s largest flood resilience scheme. The £76m SuDS programme includes bioswales (landscaped, vegetated trenches), rain gardens and other interventions designed to deliver around 30m litres of surface water storage. The mission: to reduce flood risks for 90,000 people.
Mansfield was selected for its unique soil characteristics and its relatively isolated boundary, which suggests innovation there won’t necessarily be replicable elsewhere. It does, nevertheless, demonstrate the art of the possible. There are other examples, too. In the London Borough of Enfield, there is a smaller-scale SuDs programme, valued at £1.4m and approved by the Environment Agency. It will see the implementation of 125 small interventions over a two-to-three-year period.
The small interventions in Enfield echo a phrase—”small interventions at scale”—repeated several times during the 90-minute roundtable. The inference is that relatively minor schemes grow in impact as they are rolled out multiple times across multiple locations.
This requires collaboration which, in turn, begs a question: is it desirable—even possible—to centralise mitigation efforts in order to realise economies of scale and to coalesce around collective best practice? It depends on who you ask. One attendee said it’s absolutely possible, in theory at least. “We can now model the whole water cycle… We can rewire the system.” In reality, a lack of collective will, funding and common policy imperatives makes integration more difficult to achieve. It remains the ideal, however. “We’re failing because we are not looking at the key interdependencies.”
If innovation is a key driver of future resilience, then—as multiple attendees argued—access to better data is essential. One industry watcher noted that while she has access to pockets of high--quality data (to monitor sources of pollution, for example), there are other areas where good intelligence is “sparse”. By way of example, information about overall water quality in rivers is lacking. Without good data, investment is likely to be misspent. If you don’t know the impact of a spill on the physical behaviour of a “full flowing” river system, it is easy to jump to the wrong conclusions. “Not all spills are bad spills,” she noted.
Finally, the discussion turned to regulation. As at the water supply roundtable, there was broad consensus that change is required. Attendees agreed with the government white paper’s assessment that the “current domestic legislative framework for water is … complex and not always well-aligned with modern expectations or emerging pressures.” This, the white paper asserts, “can create uncertainty around responsibilities and risks encouraging a compliance-focused approach rather than driving the best outcomes for customers and the environment.”
One attendee characterised existing regulation as “sticky… like a layer of treacle”. Another voice said he welcomed the “direction of travel” outlined by the government—with parallel tracks for water and waste—but added a note of caution, observing that a lack of detail puts “practical implementation” in peril.
As a final thought, another attendee suggested that we might be thinking about regulation in the wrong way. We don’t need a traditional regulator, she said, but we do need a coordinator. “You can’t regulate complexity but you can make sure that… roles and impacts are clear, and that [any] solution is coordinated.”
This conversation took place under the Chatham House Rule and was organised in partnership with Southern Water
