Last week’s Clean Water South event was another inspiring gathering of the network, bringing together over 50 attendees from across the water sector, including industry leaders, regulators, researchers, academics, and students.
The event featured a series of insightful talks, starting with James Jenkins, Head of Delivery on Environment for Ofwat, who talked about the price review process, upcoming water supply projects and performance commitments. He also highlighted some of the projects funded through Ofwat’s Innovation fund.
Carly Perry, Managing Director from Spring Innovation gave an engaging presentation on the importance of collaboration to protect our natural systems. She described Spring’s role in the UK water industry innovation strategy and disseminating knowledge across the sector. Carly outlined some of the innovation priorities set out in the strategy.
Dr. Nick Mills, Director of Environment & Innovation, from Southern Water described the challenge of dealing with high intensity rainfall events – starkly illustrated with a video of a stream of wheelie bins being swept along in surface water. Nick also outlined present and future investments and innovative projects underway in the Test and Itchen Rivers, highlighting the critical role of these efforts in supporting clean, sustainable water management.
One of the standout moments came from Lily Marshall, a third-year undergraduate student, who presented her brilliant work on developing recommendations for improving water quality policy in the South. Her fresh perspective and thorough analysis were an impressive addition to the event. Water Quality and Policy in the South
It was a fantastic opportunity for all attendees to engage with the latest developments and innovations in the water sector and collaborate on shaping a more sustainable future.
Next steps:
We will be forming a steering committee to help drive direction and positive action around the network for the future.
We’ll be mapping capabilities across the south’s Universities, initially with the University of Portsmouth, demonstrating our strengths and collaborative approach.
For the next event planned for late June/early July, we will be hosted by the University of Portsmouth. We will be writing again as soon as we have fixed a date and venue.
To become a part of this network, please email the team at futuretowns@soton.ac.uk