Cranleigh Civic Society is investigating the report received that Waverley Borough Council has not yet completed a full Water Cycle Study as part of it’s preparation for their draft Local Plan about to be released for public consultation.
REGISTER TO HAVE YOUR SAY ON THE LOCAL PLAN
Local Authorities, in accordance with best practice guidelines, should do a Water Cycle Study at the beginning of the local plan process as an important part of their evidence base. This will uncover at an early stage any constraints to development from environmental issues or water infrastructure capacity, and provides an informed platform from which discussions can take place with the Environment Agency (EA), water and wastewater providers (Thames Water, Southern Water etc) and other stakeholders.
This in-depth study usually includes areas such as:
Water Resources – potential increased demand for water and the infrastructure requirements to distribute it
Water Quality – potential increased generation of sewerage and other wastewater, requiring collection and treatment systems and the potential increased risk to the quality of the water environment including its ecology
Flood Risk – potential increase in wastewater or surface water run-off which could increase the risk of flooding.
Both the Cranleigh Society and the Environment Agency (EA) have highlighted that Waverley needed to do a water cycle study as part of their local plan. The EA referred to this again in the Officer’s Report for the Little Meadow planning application for 75 houses on the Alfold Road:
“The local plan evidence base would need to demonstrate that the planned housing numbers would not:
1. Lead to a deterioration in class status of the Cranleigh Waters, for any element Biochemical Oxygen Demand, Ammonia or Phosphorous,or
2. Compromise our ability to get the Cranleigh Waters to ‘Good Ecological Status’. Additional water quality modelling would need to be completed to support all of the developments cumulatively to identify whether there would be a deterioration risk to the Cranleigh Waters as a result of growth alone. This will need to be set out in Waverley Borough Council’s Local Plan, with the evidence being gathered from the conclusions made by a required Water Cycle Study.” [our emphasis]
The Cranleigh Society has continually reported pollution concerns to Waverley regarding Cranleigh Waters (the stream that Cranleigh Sewage Works discharges PER DAY on average the equivalent of two Olympic-sized Swimming Pools of liquid effluent) which over the last few years has started to dry up, particularly during summer months. This is causing serious pollution down stream from the sewage works right up to the point where the stream joins the River Wey near to Shalford.
The following photo was taken on 21st July 2016, before the sewage works discharge point into Cranleigh Waters, and as you can see one of our committee members is standing on the mostly dry stream bed and there is only a tiny trickle of water still flowing on the far side.
This image shows the discharge point at the sewage works and clearly shows the increase in the water level from liquid sewage effluent alone.
Waverley have now accepted the need for a water cycle study and have appointed consultants CAPITA, however, they have left it too late to do a full report. The first stage of this two part process normally takes between 6 and 12 months, however, Waverley have advised us that their study will be available when the draft local plan and other supporting documentation is published in approximately one week.
We have serious concerns about the depth of the study they are carrying out. We have been advised that they only have time to do an overview study known as a “High Level Water Cycle Study” which is reported to be a desktop sift-through of government web-site data and published water abstraction licences and will not take account of specific local issues.
Considering we are in an area of water stress, where demand for water can exceed the amount available, as well as having a well-documented history of sewage issues, we believe that the scale of the housing being proposed in and around Cranleigh makes a full study essential.
The Environment Agency have advised us that they will object to the draft Local Plan, if an appropriate water cycle study has not been carried out.
Meanwhile, the Environment Agency is sending a team of their experts to Cranleigh to investigate the pollution problem, following our meeting at the sewage works and a report from the Shamley Green Angling Club (they have fishing rights to Cranleigh Waters in Bramley) that they have stopped fishing this stream as fish stocks have died out due to the pollution. We would like to acknowledge the invaluable and professional support and advice from the Environment Agency, despite considerable cuts in their workforce and a mounting workload.
We would also like to thank all of you who have been involved with the Cranleigh Sewage Works Odour Survey and just to let you know we will be publishing our results very soon.
If you have any concerns about the growing pollution in Cranleigh Waters, please get in touch.
AND DON’T FORGET TO REGISTER TO HAVE YOUR SAY ON THE LOCAL PLAN
