Continuing his visits to water treatment centres in the constituency, Richard recently visited the Water Recycling Centre (WRC) in Biggleswade.
Richard Fuller MP said:
I have visited a lot of Water Recycling Centres during my time as MP but none quite so large as Biggleswade.
I recently had a very informative visit accompanied by a number of local representative bodies including Biggleswade Mayor, Cllr Jonathan Woodhead, Central Beds Councillor for Northill, Cllr Paul Daniels, and representatives from local Town and Parish Councils.
The visit was very useful with a number of questions centred on the highly contentious subject of storm overflows (where water is vented untreated into the rivers because the capacity of the site has been exceeded during heavy rainfall).
The Biggleswade site is essentially at maximum capacity so Anglian Water will be working with Central Bedfordshire Council to object to any new developments which threaten to overwhelm the system further.
The visit followed objections by Anglian Water to a proposed development in Upper Caldecote as the Biggleswade WRC is unable to cope with additional foul water. Anglian Water also objected to a development in Northill in December last year.
Richard added:
It is good to see Anglian Water company take a proactive stance to protect existing sewage systems from any potential excess pressure caused by large scale housing developments.
Although all new developments do separate out sewage from rainwater and are often very efficient in their use of water, they inevitably add to the total amount of sewage in the system.
I have supported water companies becoming statutory consultees on large developments, so these considerations are given more weight in planning decisions. I also want developers to make a bigger financial contribution to protecting our sewage systems as currently it is only the marginal impact that is taken into consideration.
We face a wide range of issues with water management in Bedfordshire which is one reason I pushed for the establishment of the North Bedfordshire Water Management Alliance to bring all agencies together to deal more effectively with flooding and its consequences and with improving the quality of water in our rivers.
You can read more about Richard's views on wastewater and flooding at https://www.richardfuller.co.uk/campaigns/wastewater-overflows-and-flooding-0
