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The Environment Angency has today released a report
outlining the criticality of environmental services,
such as water, sewerage and flood defences in new
development.
The report and supporting policy document, "Hidden
Infrastructure: The pressures on environmental
infrastructure", says that each new home will need
around £20,000 spent to protect environmental services.
It describes four key "pillars" essential to sustainable
housing growth: the rightlocation, appropriate long term
planning, reducing demand for new infrastructure and
securing funding for environmental infrastructure early.
EA chief executive Barbara Young acknowledged that towns
and cities needed to expand, but said that those
communities must have the right environmental
infrastructure to support them.
"While we all know that communities can't function
without infrastructure such as schools, transport and
hospitals, we have to remember that behind every
community lies a network of essential environmental
services. Without these, our homes and neighbourhoods
would be unsustainable. These services provide clean
water, handle our waste, drain our sewage and protect us
from flooding but they are often taken for granted."
"There has been a historic legacy of under-investment
and poor maintenance in water and sewer capacity. Last
year, nearly 5000 properties were flooded by sewers and
more than 3500 million litres of water a day was lost
through leaks. There is an urgent need to reduce the
amount of waste going to landfill and the unavoidable
impacts of climate change will increase the risk of
flooding," she said.
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