Sir Peter Parker Award

Peter Parker Award 2003

Presented at The Lincoln Centre, London on 20th April 2004 by Stephen Timms, Minister of State for Energy, E-Commerce and Postal Services.

South East Water plc - Barcombe Reservoir Sustainable Improvements

The project emanated from South East Water's desire to become more sustainable, linking new and existing policies together to create a new direction. South East Water's sustainable programme has been developed around three themes; (1) effect on the local economy (2) the environment and (3) social structure. Under Environment, South East Water has worked to protect the South Downs, a stretch of chalk downs which through scrub clearance has seen swathes of land restored to “Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty”. South East Water has entered much of their land into DEFRA's Environmentally Sensitive Areas scheme. Other environmental projects include:

  • encouraging the return of otters to Sussex
  • a barn owl boxing scheme in Arlington, and
  • river and reservoir management using common reed and willow planting.

Through Social Sustainability South East Water works to ensure that their staff, customers and stakeholders understand and partake in the vision to be more sustainable. Many areas of land require a trade off between protecting the biodiversity of the land and opening them to recreational use. South East Water has worked to introduce sustainable recreation, protecting footpaths and banks from erosion and using traditional oak in signage and benches that helps to protect rare coppice woodlands and the communities that work them. Through South East's Economic Sustainability initiatives they have created a number of efficient business areas. At Barcombe treatment works they have developed a sludge removal process that enables the waste to be used as a resource on agricultural land rather than go to landfill. The heat from the process heats buildings. An environmental algae control has been developed which has not only been successful in treating algae but has also reduced operating costs.

www.southeastwater.co.uk

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