Paul Hickey, Managing Director of RAPID, reflects on what has been achieved through RAPID’s work so far – and what lies ahead.
Ofwat’s latest Price Review, released in December 2024, marked five years since the launch of RAPID – the Regulators’ Alliance for Progressing Infrastructure Development – in the 2019 Price Review.
Whilst the challenges facing England and Wales’ water supply were foreseen, the scale of the potential deficit has grown since RAPID was formed.
Projections in the latest Water Resources Management Plans indicate that England and Wales will need around 5 billion extra litres of water per day by 2050 – equivalent to more than a third of the water currently put into supply.
Part of this shortfall will be addressed through halving leakage, reducing demand, and increasing efficiency of water usage. But these alone won’t be enough to meet the deficit – we need new infrastructure to provide additional supply.
RAPID: the story so far
Since being established, I’m proud of what RAPID, working in collaboration with the three principal water regulators – Ofwat, the Environment Agency and the Drinking Water Inspectorate – has achieved to secure our long-term water supply.
Over the past five years, we’ve worked together to oversee a programme of Strategic Resource Options (SROs) – large water supply schemes involving multiple water companies – on a scale not seen for decades.
Our RAPID gated process is reviewing water company spending throughout the early development of these SROs, as well as coordinating regulatory views in advance of the SRO applications for planning and environmental consents.
The RAPID programme has also prompted collaboration right across the sector, by breaking down silos and getting companies working together on designing and delivering supply solutions across regions and sectors. The water sector has welcomed new partnerships and brought a range of organisations into RAPID solutions, such as the Canal & Rivers Trust and the Mining Remediation Authority, both of which are partners in delivering solutions.
So far, our new cross-regulatory partnership is galvanising the urgent action required to secure our long-term water security.
What the latest Ofwat Price Review 24 means for RAPID
In its latest Price Review, Ofwat ringfenced an additional £2 billion of development funding for RAPID to work with the water companies to further progress the SROs towards delivery. We also expanded the number of RAPID solutions to a total of 28, up from 18 in 2019, and included 5 additional smaller-scale projects to receive tailored RAPID support.
The RAPID programme amounts to around £48 billion in total investment over the coming decades. This includes nine new reservoirs, such as Fens in Cambridgeshire and SESRO in Oxfordshire. These nine reservoirs would, if built, be able to supply the daily needs of around 5.5 million people.
Also amongst the plans are nine new large-scale water transfer schemes, including the Grand Union Canal Transfer, which will allow water from the West Midlands to be transferred over 130km to the more water-stressed South East of England.
As the Chancellor recently indicated, these solutions can play a key role in supporting growth, by unlocking water capacity for new homes and businesses and boosting local jobs in areas where solutions are being delivered.
RAPID: delivering water resilience in AMP8
We are further scaling up our work in AMP8 – the 2025-30 price review period – with renewed focus on these key areas:
- 1 – Continuing to work with the water companies to develop the SROs at pace. By the end of the year, five SROs are expected to have received their final decisions on Gate 3, the final stage before they move to seeking formal planning permission. We expect a number of SROs to be construction ready by the time the next Price Review comes into force in early 2030 – and we’re actively working with the water companies on ways we can support the optimisation of SRO delivery timelines.
- 2 – Supporting companies with identifying new resource options. Whilst we await the updated Environment Agency’s National Framework for Water Resources in the summer, we anticipate that pressures on water resources won’t have abated since the first Framework was published five years ago. As challenges linked to climate change and the demands of water-intensive data centres or low carbon energies intensify, it is likely that more solutions will be required to avoid a supply shortfall. A key priority will therefore be supporting companies to progress new work on optioneering to further broaden and diversify our water supply solutions beyond the current pipeline. This is important both to make sure there are enough options to cover water needs and to create a wide enough range of options to present meaningful choices and arrive at an optimal portfolio.
- 3 – Evolving our regulatory framework to enable the application of new water resource technologies. We support the work companies are doing to embrace new technologies such as water recycling and desalination to diversify our water resource options. Both of these approaches are included in the expanded RAPID programme. These technologies provide drought-resistant supplies, and are already widely used in many countries around the world. Working across the three principal water regulators, we will put in place the right regulation to enable their safe and efficient application over the coming years – as well as leaning in to support public engagement efforts to promote their benefits and demonstrate how public health and environmental risks are well mitigated.
Whilst boosting supply infrastructure is essential, we recognise that ensuring the projects provide value for money remains of paramount importance. We will continue to scrutinise the latest costings through our RAPID gated process and use competitive tendering in our procurement to drive the right outcomes for customers.
We must continue to take swift and immediate action to secure our future water supply. Together, we will lay crucial foundations over the next five years that will build our water resilience for generations to come.