The DWMP is a long-term planning study which looks at drainage and sewerage needs over the next 25 years. The Plan looks at future trends and embeds an approach of working together with others to investigate and identify options for the sustainable management of our wastewater services.

The Plan assesses the level of risk we face from climate change, urban development, and a changing population. It looks 25 years into the future, as a minimum, with the current Plan covering how we will deal with challenges between 2025 to 2050.

During the current period of consultation, we will be presenting the results of our findings and making recommendations on how we can make improvements to our planning process and the service we provide.

We have combined our Welsh Water 2050 strategic responses, national planning objectives and feedback from customers and stakeholders into three high level planning themes:

• Water quantity - Reducing the risk of flooding to communities
• Water quality - Improving water quality for the environment
• Resilience and maintenance - Making sure we can adapt to changes in the future, whilst also maintaining important services and protecting the environment

Our overall goal is to ensure that we can achieve the expected level of service in all the areas we operate.

We are proposing the following stages to achieve our environmental and customer destinations:

• We start with the worst problems and focus on fixing them first.
• We then move onto the ‘next worst’ problems until the point at which we have addressed all of the identified problems.

In the Plan, we refer to the proposed Customer Destination and Environmental Destination:

• Customer Destination – This is a time in the future when customers will no longer have flooding from sewage inside their homes that is due to a lack of capacity of the sewer network.
• Environmental Destination – This is a time in the future when our rivers and coastal waters receive only treated flows from our sewerage system that are protective of their biodiversity and ecology.

Details of the six national planning objectives and the DWMP action plan can be found in the Strategic Context document ‘Introduction to the Drainage and Wastewater Management Plan’ here.

More information about the DWMP can be found in the customer overview of our strategic context ‘Introduction to the Drainage and Wastewater Management Plan’ which has been created for our customers as a summary of what will be included in this first DWMP together and why, and how, we created it.

We have looked at current and future risks, and their causes.

The DWMP process has allowed us to look at the consequences of increasing rainfall and sewage now, and in the future, and how the risk of flooding and pollution will increase over time resulting in capacity issues.

To find out more about collaborative working please download our ‘Where we want to work with you’ document, which details our vision for future joint working.

This stage of the DWMP focuses on the development of solutions to address risks, uncertainty and objectives. We have looked at the following as part of the option development process:

• Scope
• Cost
• Timing
• Benefits

Overall, our approach looks at different options in terms of:

• Their cost
• The likely impact on flooding and pollution
• Wider benefits for people, nature and the environment

We have worked closely with our customer challenge group and independent environmental advisory group as part of this process.

For this part of the Plan, we take the preferred solutions and look at different programmes and timescales to implement them.

We bring all the best value options together into a Plan over time. We take the preferred solutions and look at when risks are likely to materialise. We can then create a programme of work which looks to address the current risks first, followed by those that bring greater environmental and social benefit.

The short-term programme is then packaged up and presented to our financial regulator for assessment.

The Level 2 and Level 3 summaries set out how we will manage and improve our assets to maintain a resilient and robust wastewater drainage system throughout our operating area.

Two levels of plans have been created:

• Level 2 plans are for river basin management areas
• Level 3 plans are for strategic planning area catchments in Wales

You can access the area summaries using the links at the bottom of this web page.

We have embedded the principles of the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and Habitat Regulation Assessment (HRA) early in the Plan development process.

Only those options which have a positive impact on the environment have been taken forward for consideration in our Plan.

Those identified with possible negative impacts will be reviewed again to understand whether the solutions can be adjusted or if not, then an alternative solution will be put forward.

These schemes then make up the first DWMP programme of work.

You can access the SEA and HRA documents at the links below:

• Download Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)
• Download the Habitats Regulations Assessment (HRA)

We will update stakeholders and customers at the five key stages of the Plan:

1. Strategic Context
2. Risk Assessment
3. Options Development
4. Programme Appraisal
5. Consultation

We want to work with our stakeholders and customers to feed into the development of the Plan and deliver options.

Our aim is to put together joint working groups made up of Programme Boards, Project Boards and Community Project Boards, to identify, plan, fund and execute projects as part of the DWMP.

We’ve put together a new e-learning tool which will help you learn more about the DWMP in a fun and interactive way. We want to give you enough information so that you can contribute to the Plan and the development of solutions.

You can find our e-learning site here, where you can learn more about:

• What the DWMP is
• The history of drainage and wastewater management
• Future challenges
• How to get involved in shaping the DWMP