4 Oct 2017
In February 2017, the Government published the consultation document, Clean Water – 90% of rivers and lakes swimmable by 2040. The document proposed amendments to the 2014 National Policy Statement (NPS) for Freshwater Management. It also covered the Freshwater Improvement Fund, proposed regulations on keeping stock out of waterways, and introduced a future work programme.
With help from our members, we responded to the consultation. In August, the Government released the final amendments to the NPS. We were pleased to see that some of the issues we raised have influenced decision making in this area and are included in the changes. For example, the final amendments now include a broader term than swimmable waterways and have changed the threshold for E.coli levels.
We appreciate our members’ contribution to the submission. We’ll continue to respond to consultations in this way, so regulators know what engineers think and need.
