Sustainability Action Plan

about this principle

We need to be water efficient and use rain and waste water sustainably. This all helps to reduce local flooding and droughts which is important here, with 50% of Sutton on the flood plain. The floods in July 2007 (pictured left) showed that we have a real need for Sustainable Water strategies and climate change adaptation and mitigation.

At BedZED the residents use on average 72 litres of mains water per person per day and another 15 litres of recycled or rain water. The average in Sutton is 143 litres for people with a water meter, and 177 litres for people without (OFWAT 2005/6). The Code for Sustainable Homes demands less than 80 litres per person per day for top-scoring new homes.

Aim

We suggest that a good target for Sutton would be to reduce household water consumption by 50% of the Sutton average, so from 434 litres per household per day to 217 litres by 2020. Households with water meters generally use much less water but only 20% of homes in the Sutton and East Surrey area are metered (compared to an England and Wales average of 30%).

Adaptation for climate change is also a key aim, and so perhaps we should also set a target (and strategies to achieve it) for numbers of at risk homes renovated to minimise flood damage. This would include measures like porous paving, sloping gardens away from the house and using swales and ponds to retain water when there is a heavy downpour.