On 25 March I had the great pleasure of presenting for the Rethinking Water Citizens’ Jury. Mine was an interesting topic on Enabling safe access to the river system. It was a good chance to speak from the heart about the value of our rivers, and the need for us to care for them.

There were two other interesting speakers in our evening slot. I was particularly impressed by the Jurors though. They asked a lot of really switched-on questions…certainly kept me on my toes a couple of times.

Recommendations

The Jury digested a lot of information over the sessions – you can see all the presentations on the website. Their recommendations are going to be useful to a variety of organisations with interests in how we use our rivers.

• The first recommendation is around tackling sewage and water quality – that certainly makes sense, it’s important for all of us and very topical.
• The second recommendation is on funding and investment – this is great to see, as I know the pressure that most organisations in the water sector are under. We need investment for today’s environment – this really ramps up when we think about the impacts of climate change and population growth.
• And the third recommendation is good as well: the need to influence planning and development – tightening up the rules will help here, we also need capacity in our planning teams as well (funding and staffing).