Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): Folks, you are welcome to today's Infrastructure Committee meeting. We are joined by Julie Ann Dutton, Alison Clydesdale, Stuart Wightman and Jim McComish. I invite you to make an opening statement of up to 15 minutes. Following that, members will have questions for you. Over to you.

Ms Alison Clydesdale (Department for Infrastructure): Good morning, Chair and members. Thank you for the invitation to brief the Committee on the Water, Sustainable Drainage and Flood Management Bill, which was introduced in the Assembly on 23 June and, as you know, passed its Second Stage yesterday. I thank the Committee for its support for the Bill during yesterday's debate. I hope that we can provide you with any further detail that you require this morning. I am joined by my colleagues Julie Ann Dutton and Jim McComish from my division's Bill team and Stuart Wightman from the sustainable drainage division.

As you are aware, the Bill will amend existing legislation — the Water and Sewerage Services (Northern Ireland) Order 2006 — to improve processes for Northern Ireland Water (NIW), to improve ways to reduce flood risk and to improve protection of the environment from pollution. As the Minister said yesterday, the Bill is broadly cost-neutral for Northern Ireland Water. There will be small administrative costs for Northern Ireland Water, but the Bill also allows Northern Ireland Water to correct certain unlawful misconnections and then recoup the repair cost from the landowner, if the landowner refuses to fix the misconnection. There may also be costs associated with bringing any private drainage infrastructure (PDI) that Northern Ireland Water considers to be critical to the functioning of the sewerage network up to an adoptable standard, but that will be considered on a case-by-case basis. It is important to point out that, under the legislation, Northern Ireland Water is not required to adopt all of the pre-1973 private drainage infrastructure: it can choose to adopt just what will help the network.

There will be some additional costs related to sustainable drainage systems (SuDS). As the Minister said yesterday, she is launching an initial public consultation next week to seek views on the development and implementation of new policies and regulatory arrangements to ensure that nature-based SuDS are provided in new housing developments in the future. As that policy is developed, there will be more clarity on emerging costs. The homeowner flood protection grant scheme is funded from the Department's budget and, therefore, is not a cost to Northern Ireland Water.

Given that the Second Stage debate was just yesterday and you are all familiar with the key policies and clauses, I intend to cover those only briefly. Clause 1 extends the list of activities that Northern Ireland Water may prohibit or restrict as part of a temporary hosepipe ban or a temporary use ban. That will not apply to commercial activities. In the event of a hosepipe ban, farmers, for example, will be able to continue with commercial farming activities but will be subject to the same domestic restrictions as other households.

Clause 2 gives the Department the power to make future regulations on the design, approval and maintenance of sustainable drainage systems to make SuDS the preferred means of dealing with surface water.

Clauses 3 to 5 set out supplementary matters, definitions and a consequential amendment to the Water and Sewerage Services Order to differentiate between different types of sustainable drainage system.

Clause 6 provides the Department with powers to introduce grants to assist homeowners in high-risk flood areas to protect their homes. The Bill includes the power to make regulations for a permanent scheme, so there will be further engagement with the Committee and Assembly in that regard. Regulations will need to be drafted, and a business case and post-project evaluation for the pilot scheme will need to be completed. The draft regulations and eligibility criteria will also be subject to a consultation after the enabling powers in the Bill become operational.

Clauses 7 and 8 allow the Department powers to make new regulations to ensure that two specific sets of regulations that were made using EU legislation can keep pace with any future developments after leaving the EU. Those are the Drainage (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017 and the Water Environment (Floods Directive) Regulations 2009. In both cases, those regulations will be subject to affirmative resolution by the Assembly. Clause 9 places limits on the scope of any such proposed regulations.

Clause 10 will provide Northern Ireland Water with the power to register article 161 adoption agreements and the associated bonds in the Statutory Charges Register. Clause 10 also provides for the removal of the article 161 agreements from the register once the sewers have been adopted.

Clause 11 will provide Northern Ireland Water with the power to enter premises to fix drainage miscommunications and recover the cost from the landowners. Miscommunications or misconnections — they are the same thing — tend to occur where a foul sewer has been incorrectly connected to a storm water sewer or vice versa. It can often happen when a washing machine is installed in a garage or where an extension has been built, for example. That type of misconnection causes pollution in watercourses.

Clause 12 will allow Northern Ireland Water to adopt and maintain sections of privately owned drainage infrastructure constructed prior to 1 October 1973 where it benefits the operation of Northern Ireland Water's network. That will help to ensure that any failing private infrastructure will no longer cause flooding damage to the environment or harm biodiversity.

Clause 13 allows the Department to make provision by order for the purposes of the Act, and clause 14 sets out various definitions. Clause 15 sets out the timescales. Clauses 13 to 16 will come into operation on the day after Royal Assent, whereas the other clauses — the majority of the Bill — will require a commencement order to come into operation once Royal Assent has been achieved.

I hope that that was helpful. We are happy to address any questions that Committee members may have.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): Thank you very much, Alison. Thank you for joining us at Committee. I am sure that members will have a range of questions.

I will start with a question about clause 6 and the flood protection grants scheme. I think that the cost of that was about £300,000 last year. Do you have projections of what the likely cost will be in the next five to 10 years? Has the Department looked at that?

Ms Clydesdale: I do not have projections that far out. We have sight of budgets only for a shorter period for that. That is administered by our rivers scheme, so all that I have is the costs to date, which, I think, the Minister covered yesterday.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): I think that the homeowner flood protection grant scheme was £300,000.

Ms Clydesdale: As of May 2025, 165 homes had been provided with a grant. The total cost of capital works for those 165 homes, which is during the life of the existing scheme, was just over £1·2 million. That is the capital cost, in addition to which there is the cost of consultants and the support provided, which was £188,000, which takes it up to about £1·5 million. The average grant paid to householders is £7,842.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): Might that rise?

Ms Clydesdale: The average number of applications each year has been about 20 homes. It is a demand-led scheme, so it depends on how many people apply.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): That is fine.

I am looking at what the explanatory and financial memorandum (EFM) states about clause 12. The final sentence states:

My question is about the phrase:

How will it be determined what is critical to the functioning of the sewerage network?

Ms Clydesdale: It will be determined on a case-by-case basis. I am trying to think of an example. It is an operational matter for Northern Ireland Water. If, for example, someone's garden was flooding and there was a small piece of pipe that went through that garden that did not belong to Northern Ireland Water but fixing it and Northern Ireland Water's adopting it would solve that problem, it might consider adopting it and bringing it up to standard. It is that type of thing.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): I get the concept of it; my question is more about the benchmarking of it. The phrase that is used is:

How will that be judged? I could have something going through my garden as per the example that you just gave me, but who will make the decision, and what objective criteria will be used to decide whether somebody is going to dig up my garden and take up my pipe, if you know what I mean?

Ms Clydesdale: I know what you mean. Those will largely be operational matters for Northern Ireland Water. It will always seek to prevent internal flooding and other types of flooding. It is just on a case-by-case basis. I do not know whether anyone has any specific examples.

Mr Stuart Wightman (Department for Infrastructure): As you know, Northern Ireland Water is a regulated utility and is set targets. One of those targets, as Alison alluded to, is internal DG5 out-of-sewer flooding. It also has targets to do with spills into the environment, such as rivers and things. It develops a scheme to address those things. It may well be that, rather than constructing a new pipe, it is economically advantageous to use older infrastructure that is there, so it will be done when it is developing projects to address some of the objectives that the Utility Regulator has set out for it.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): I get that it is Northern Ireland Water; I reflect to you that it is in the EFM of the Department's Bill. We as a Committee may want to pick that up. The point that I make is that, with that phrase and whatever the outworking is from the clause, people will wonder what criteria need to be met for Northern Ireland Water to go in and do that, because it gives a power to do it. How will Northern Ireland Water consider what is critical to the functioning of its sewerage network? If it is some amorphous term, you will have people legitimately asking, "Why are you coming in to dig up my garden?", and Northern Ireland will say that it thinks that it is critical. If I were a homeowner in those circumstances, I would be saying, "Why is it critical, and how are you judging that it is critical? I don't think that it is critical". That is the tenor of my question. I am happy to park that there.

On adoption by the sewerage undertaker, have you done any estimates of cost savings? Is there any analysis, if the clause were adopted, of what the cost savings around it would be? Are there any expectations around that?

Ms Clydesdale: We will not have done that analysis because, as I said, they are all individual and on a case-by-case basis. Each case would have to be assessed as an issue came up, if Northern Ireland Water were deciding to adopt a section of private drainage infrastructure.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): I do not doubt the good intentions behind clause 12. It seems reasonable that, where we can improve sewerage infrastructure, we do that, for a range of reasons. It is just that we are being asked to consider legislation that will give wide-ranging powers, and my concern around that is that the Committee should ask why you need those powers, what they will do and what the outcome of those powers will be. I do not know yet that I have a really good answer for what the reasons are for wanting those powers and what the benefits will be when you have them.

Ms Julie Ann Dutton (Department for Infrastructure): In 2015, it was estimated that there were around 176 kilometres of PDI, 87 kilometres of which are in the greater Belfast area. Most people would want their sewers adopted by NI Water, and that is the important point. They do not want the maintenance hassle of looking after infrastructure in their garden or in their property. It is usually, I think, in the public interest.

Mr Wightman: To add to what Julie Ann said, there are some legacy developments — housing developments, believe it or not — that were built before 1973 that cannot be adopted because of that restriction in the legislation. There is a development at Ballyhornan and others that cannot be adopted by Northern Ireland Water for those reasons.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): Clause 11 deals with miscommunications. Powers are being sought to go in and fix those. If the power is granted and Northern Ireland Water goes in to fix those, who bears the cost of that?

Ms Clydesdale: As I said in my opening remarks, the legislation allows for Northern Ireland Water to recoup the claims, if the landowner does not agree to fix it.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): How common is that? For example, how many cases are live at some level where Northern Ireland Water would like to go in and sort out miscommunications but cannot?

Ms Dutton: I do not have those figures with me today. The Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) identifies those fairly regularly, and it keeps a database of that information. It undertook a pilot scheme in Newtownards a few years ago where a housing estate had an awful lot of miscommunications. It depends on the age of the property sometimes. Quite a few of them are cropping up, and Northern Ireland Water has been asking for the power for some time.

The pollution is created by the house owner, but it travels through Northern Ireland Water's pipes to get to the watercourse, so it would have an interest in repairing that.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): We can all agree that what it is trying to achieve is a good thing. It helps our drainage and sewerage system. How common is that issue? Perhaps you could find that out for us and let the Committee know. Again, this is about seeking a power, so I would like to know what the quantum of issues is around that.

My final question is more of a reflection. I raised it in my remarks yesterday. Perhaps you will have a view on it: you may even have lines on it, if you were listening to the debate, and they may have been written for you already. I gave the example of a play park that is to be built in North Down. We cannot get it built because of the difficulties around the offset. We need to hard-tack an area, and we need to find where that water will go. It is covered well by the concept of miscommunication. My understanding is that Northern Ireland Water has told the developer to find a drain or somewhere that is already miscommunicated, so that it can be used. The developer building the play park is going round churches and pouring dye down drains to try to find some miscommunicated sewer somewhere or drain or whatever the term is, so that it can be linked up again. Is that commonplace? Have you heard of examples before, where developments are held up — in this case, a play park — because of a lack of sewerage infrastructure and where the onus has been placed back on to someone to find a miscommunicated sewer so that the development can go ahead?

Ms Clydesdale: I have not heard of examples involving play parks, but there is a lot of media coverage of housing examples. Northern Ireland Water would encourage all developers to engage with it as early as possible. Often, developers are required to provide storm water offsetting mechanisms that are to be agreed with Northern Ireland Water.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): OK. Just out of interest, is the onus on the developer to find that, or would your evidence be that Northern Ireland Water should help with that? Is it purely on the developer to pour as much dye as he can into drains in order to find a supplementary watercourse?

Ms Clydesdale: Northern Ireland Water would help with that; in fact, in its planning responses, it will detail exactly the conditions that, perhaps, are causing the issue. The solution to install whatever storm water offsetting is required, however, will be developer-led and will be funded by the developer. That would normally feature in Northern Ireland Water's planning response to the planning authority, which, in this case, as it is a local play park, is likely to be the council. Those conditions would be set out, and, if the developer has engaged with Northern Ireland Water as part of the pre-development engagement process, it will work with them to identify a solution.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): I have no doubt that that is absolutely the case when it comes to the planning aspects. My question is more about the operability of it all. Clearly, Northern Ireland Water will be clear about the planning process. I am more interested in the aspect around finding the drain and the miscommunication. Is it your view that Northern Ireland Water should help with that, or should that be purely on the developer?

Ms Clydesdale: My understanding is that Northern Ireland Water would help with that as far as it could. Sometimes, at some sites, there is no solution, and that is just a fact. Generally, however, Northern Ireland Water is helpful in providing whatever information it can in order to identify a storm water offsetting solution.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): OK. Hopefully, we will get a resolution, and we will get a play park at some point. That is great. That is just an example, given that there is a clause that talks about miscommunication, of one that I am fairly familiar with. That is all the questions from me.

Mr Stewart: Thanks very much, folks, for coming back today. I know that you were listening to the debate yesterday, which, it is fair to say, was a positive one. One of the nice things about being on this Committee is that we do not find much to disagree about. We may find ways to disagree on how we get there, but we are all in agreement that the Bill has positive outcomes. Any questions, feedback or criticism from me or my colleagues will only be to try to strengthen the Bill. We want to work with you in order to make that happen. That is the intention from the outset.

I will ask a question. There might not be answers to it today, but I am happy to take them at a later date. I will go back to clause 12. When I read that initially, I was really positive about its potential, because, as you know, I have raised many times, on behalf of constituents, issues regarding unadopted developments. Those issues are primarily due to waste water infrastructure underneath that has not quite made the grade. Even when there are significant bonds in place, we still find it virtually impossible to get them over the line. I am trying to square the circle in my head. I hear that this will be cost-neutral and, hopefully, will lead to hundreds of developments eventually being adopted by Northern Ireland Water. There will be no cost to Northern Ireland Water, and it will happen because, as Julie Ann said, everyone wants to be on the network. Talk me through how the legislation will grease the wheels and allow the adoption of many developments, some of which are 50 years old and some of which are 20 years old, to happen without Northern Ireland Water being exposed to massive financial pressures. Developers might be bust or even dead and may not be in place to make the financial contribution that is needed to make it happen. That is, to my mind, where this lies. I want to understand, in my head, how that will happen.

Ms Clydesdale: It is important to separate the capacity issues that are prevalent in today's network and how they are dealt with. This is slightly different. As Stuart said, there have been occasions when Northern Ireland Water has come up with a solution to fix flooding, for example, and has discovered that there is a piece of private drainage infrastructure — a pipe, a valve, a tank or whatever — but has been unable to adopt it because it was pre-1973 and there were no powers to do that. That meant that, instead of adopting that and providing the most efficient solution, there had to be a workaround that was perhaps more expensive, because there were no powers to adopt that specific piece of infrastructure. That may help in releasing some bigger developments, but, generally, the idea is that they are relatively small, individual pieces of private drainage infrastructure, so the cost is thought to be relatively low. It could be dealt with on a case-by-case basis as well. There may be a cost-sharing process agreed with the landowner, who may be, as Julie Ann said, happy for Northern Ireland Water to take it on. It is not quite the same as the capacity issues.

Do you want to add anything, Julie Ann?

Ms Dutton: No. I will just reiterate what Alison said. You talked about developments that are maybe 20 years old, but they would not be caught under clause 12, because it relates only to pre-1973 developments. It will not in any way help to address those issues.

Mr Stewart: Until we dig something up or come across an example, we do not know how much it might cost the water provider — as in, Northern Ireland Water — and we do not know, until that point, whether it is critical to the network. It may be deemed critical, and we may use the powers, but it may be the case that no one is there to pay for it, because the poor person who finds it in their garden might be boracic or might not have the assets to do it. Apparently, this is cost-neutral legislation, so where does the money come from to make it happen in the hundreds of examples that we have identified? Northern Ireland Water says that there are hundreds of examples across the country. That is what I am trying to get my head around.

Ms Dutton: In 2015, it identified 197 kilometres, I think, of private drainage infrastructure covered under clause 12. It is quite a small amount of private drainage infrastructure, at least, that it is aware of at this time. It has a lot of really high-tech equipment nowadays and can check with CCTV and things like that. In many cases, it knows the condition of sewers without having to dig anything up.

Mr Stewart: To me, 197 kilometres sounds like a lot, but it is probably not a great deal. It is 50-year-old-plus infrastructure. Has Northern Ireland Water, in its engagement with the Department, not said, "We are concerned about x kilometres of those 197 kilometres and want to bring them in under this legislation", or is that in the eventuality that something potentially pops up?

Ms Clydesdale: It is in the eventuality that they discover that there is a piece of infrastructure that, if it was brought up to a better standard, would help to improve the solution. It is not the same as the more widespread unadopted developments that you touched on. This is just a small amount of private drainage infrastructure that predates 1973.

The 2015 figures are the best estimate that we have. When they do repairs, sometimes they come upon things that they, perhaps, did not know were there. In the past, if they came upon something that needed to be repaired but it was not on their maps and they realised that it was pre-1973, they were not able to touch that or do anything with it. This power allows them to do that, and it should result in more efficient repairs and a more efficient network. If the cost was to come to Northern Ireland Water, it would have to come out of its general maintenance budget, which it would in any case be using to do that repair, so it would be a marginal increase perhaps; in fact, it might be cheaper. If they were able to repair a short piece of infrastructure, that might be a cheaper solution than having to work around it, which is what they would have had to do previously.

Mr Stewart: That is good to know.

I want to touch on clause 11. We have had Northern Ireland Water in before. That is already happening, is it not? We are already sending in enforcement officers through Northern Ireland Water to enforce illegal or miscommunicated connections, because we know of people who were brought to court and fined; they were asked to make it right or else. Talk me through what exists now versus how that will differ.

Ms Dutton: The miscommunications powers that Northern Ireland Water has at the moment allow it to stop it up, so they can go onto your property and stop up the connection, which is not very satisfactory for the homeowner — that would mean that maybe you could not use your washing machine — and they could not repair. This will now allow Northern Ireland Water to carry out the repairs and recoup the moneys rather than just leaving you in the difficult position of not being able to use your appliances.

Mr Stewart: They can enter the premises and take action, and, if the proprietor or homeowner does not pay on the day the invoice that is created, that will be court action to go through that process to claim it back.

Ms Dutton: Yes.

Mr Stewart: That is the process. OK. That is good to know.

With regard to clause 3, you might have heard the previous session with the Research and Information Service (RaISe) when I asked whether it had been considered that we look at some sort of hybrid grant that might well help both domestic and commercial premises. There were examples in previous flooding of hybrid premises where you might have had a business owner who lived in the property, so it was a shop downstairs and a home upstairs. Potentially, they would not be able to avail themselves of the full value of the grant. Was anything like that looked at? Does that exist elsewhere, and might it be beneficial in dealing with such instances when they pop up?

Ms Clydesdale: Clause 6?

Mr Stewart: No, clause 3. Sorry, yes, clause 6, and flood protection grants.

Ms Clydesdale: The powers in the Bill are to give us a legislative footing for a homeowner flood protection grant scheme. At the moment, it is a pilot scheme that is operating. This will allow for a permanent scheme to be put in place, but there will need to be further consultation on the eligibility criteria. The pilot scheme as it stands is available to private residential homeowners. In the example that you just gave of a business with perhaps a flat up above, the business on the ground floor would not be able to avail itself of the pilot scheme at the moment.

Mr Stewart: Yes, that is my point. It would quite good, although maybe not for this legislation, if, in the thought process of developing those grants, we tried to find a flexible approach because half of the premises is the home. For example, the door might lead to a business first, but the stairs take you up to the house, and they are blocked from getting access to the house, because they cannot get the grant. In eventualities such as that it would be useful to have a flexible approach rather than an obtuse one, so it would be worthwhile to look at that.

Ms Clydesdale: Yes. That would obviously be part of a future consultation. When we do a post-project evaluation of the pilot scheme, I would expect some of those things to come out of that as well.

Mr Stewart: I think that the Minister mentioned it yesterday and maybe we heard it from RaISe earlier, but did you say that you are expecting to launch a consultation on soft SuDS? Is that right?

Mr Wightman: Yes.

Mr Stewart: How does that consultation factor into the legislation? Would it be beneficial? Are we in a chicken-and-egg situation? A consultation is about to be launched, and we are in the middle of a legislative scrutiny process. How will that be beneficial to what we are doing?

Mr Wightman: Yes. As the Minister alluded to in the Second Stage debate yesterday, the primary legislation gives us the enabling powers to set out a framework through subordinate legislation; that is, regulations in the future. However, rather than waiting until the Bill goes through the legislative scrutiny process and then starting to think about the detailed policy, we are doing them in tandem.

There is a policy consultation — I think that you received a copy of the document this morning — that is due to be launched next week. That is an initial high-level public consultation on SuDS use in new developments, including housing developments, and on the promotion of nature-based solutions such as swales. It will be the first of what will probably be several consultations to develop the detailed policy. It will get into a lot of the issues that Des the researcher raised, such as who will be best placed to be the SuDS approval body and where the money will come from for that body. All those questions that you grappled with earlier will form the detail of the consultation. It is the first consultation, so we do not have the answers. We are going out to consultation in order to develop that detail with the industry.

I think that Andrew McMurray was at a conference that the Department had on 26 June at which I did a piece on the Department's thought process on SuDS. The document builds on that conference, which was very positive. We put Mentimeter questions to the delegates, who included representatives from the construction industry. They endorsed the approach that we are taking, which is to move towards trying to possibly mandate soft SuDS, which we call "nature-based SuDS", such as swales. SuDS have been a thing for many years; they are not new. I think that you alluded to that yesterday. The issue with the soft SuDS is their maintenance. The elephant in the room is this: who will maintain them, and who will fund the maintenance?. That is the issue that we are trying to grapple with.

Two pieces of legislation — the Drainage (Northern Ireland) Order 1973 and the Water and Sewerage Services (Northern Ireland) Order 2006 — restrict discharges into a river or receiving sewer. There is a driver, therefore, for developers to put in attenuation to reduce flows, but doing that has tended to involve putting big tanks in the ground or building bigger sewers.

This is about trying to open up the discussion and address why soft SuDS are not happening. There have been some good examples that we point to in the document where developers have developed soft SuDS at their own risk, but those tend to be end-of-pipe solutions. Those tend to have a pipe network and a big pond at the back of a development. They have been doing that in England for years, but the problem is that they are not integrated into the development. There tends to be a big, 12-feet fence round the pond, and, because it is a health and safety issue, there are life rings. We are trying to move away from that. We want to get to the stage where we do not have pipes or even gullies but are dealing with SuDS at all levels throughout the development. You have property-level SuDS such as water butts and permeable paving, street-level SuDS that are integrated into the development and development-level SuDS. You will have a pond at the end, but it will be like a champagne fountain, with each level filling up. It should be only during a heavy rainfall event that water leaves the site. That is what we are promoting. It is called the "SuDS management train". That is set out, and there is a series of questions on it.

I caution that this is the first of a number of consultations that we will take forward. I am more than happy to come back to the Committee to talk more about those.

Mr Stewart: That will be useful, Stuart. It will be a key consultation, and we hope that as many people as possible feed into it. The SuDS aspect of the legislation is key, and we all recognise its importance.

Mr Wightman: To be clear, we are not pre-empting anything. This is in tandem with —.

Mr Stewart: Not at all. I am not being facetious, and this is not directed at you in any way, but I hope that more than five of the 11 councils respond to it — only five responded to the original consultation — given how important this is for planning and development and everything that goes with it. It is lamentable that only five of them could be bothered to contribute to the process to date.

Mr Wightman: Local development plans and policies have promoted SuDS but have tended to talk about hard SuDS. In our responses, we recommended opening it up more broadly to cover soft SuDS.

Mr Stewart: Thank you. We look forward to engaging with you as the legislation moves through.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): Before I bring in Cathal, may I just check something, Stuart? The purpose of the consultation, if I understood your answer correctly, is to inform the regs that will follow the Bill: is that correct?

Mr Wightman: Yes.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): I have not read the consultation document. It may have been sent to me this morning, but I have not got my hands on it yet. I suspect that other Committee members have not read it either. What is the timescale for the consultation? When will it run to?

Mr Wightman: It will run for a full 12 weeks from Monday 22 September until just before Christmas. That is the plan. In the new year, we will review the consultation responses. In the next consultation, which we will do probably in spring next year, we will get into the detailed nitty-gritty of the administrative arrangements. A regulatory framework has to be set up. The consultation will set the policy direction and ask whether we are taking the right approach. We are advocating the SuDS management train approach.

One of the challenges that developers to whom I have spoken have is that, if they put in a large SuDS feature at the back of a development, it loses a lot of real estate on which they could build houses. As I said, it also does not count towards the green space, which is the open space that they are required to provide as part of planning policy. If you can integrate it and have it as part of the green space in the development, it becomes part of that development and possibly frees up more room for them. Hard SuDS are getting to the stage such that, with climate change, there is just not the physical room in the road to build those tanks and bigger sewers alongside other utilities. The feedback that we got from the conference is that the industry wants to do this, but the maintenance, adoption and approval and all those issues need to be addressed before it can happen.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): OK. I have one quick question, and you can say that you do not know the answer; that is fine. Once the consultation finishes, when will the Department consider the responses to it, and when will we see some output? The reason I ask is that, at some point over the next few weeks, the Committee will decide how long it wants to spend scrutinising the Bill. I am thinking of forward timescales. Do you have any idea when the Department might produce some output from the consultation?

Mr Wightman: The consultation should close before the end of this calendar year, so we hope that, in the first quarter of 2026 — around January or February — we will come back to the Committee subject, obviously, to ministerial approval. As I just cautioned, there will be another consultation after this one, and that will take it to the next step. We are a couple of steps away from having the detail needed for regulations. We will also need a business case for the measure that will detail how much a SuDS approval body will cost and where it will sit. All those questions need to be answered, but, yes, we hope to come back to the Committee in the first quarter of the next calendar year.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): That is great. Thank you very much for that.

I am sorry, Cathal, for taking some of your time. Go ahead, brother.

Mr Boylan: Thanks very much. You practically got my question answered.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): That is even better.

Mr Boylan: I will ask it anyway, because John raised the issue as well.

We need partners in all this, and it is a wee bit disappointing that some of the councils did not respond. You alluded to this, and we received a briefing from the RaISe paper about area plans and everything else, but, if we are serious about introducing things, we need to find out how to go about it. We have asked for models from across the islands of the SuDS approval bodies, how to roll them out and what the best models are. My key question was about partners, because there is no point in planning and making a decision without having a proper conversation across the board about introducing soft SuDS.

I agree that the days of the hard SuDS are coming to a point, because we have seen Planning Policy Statement (PPS) 15, which is the planning policy flood statement. We know the areas now; we have identified them, so there is a broader discussion to be had on planning. Local authorities have a big say in it, so I am glad to hear that there is a new consultation. Basically, the question that I was going to ask was about our partners.

Mr Wightman: To reassure you, there was a storm water management group. We will probably resurrect that when we get to the next stage. We are working closely with a number of the councils. There is another piece of work that, I think, I briefed the Committee on a few months ago. That is the transformation project that we are taking forward on retrofitting SuDS into the urban environment. We are working with Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council and Belfast City Council. If we are working with the councils, possibly, and other stakeholders, such as those who deal with building regs and building material, it will probably be more into the next stage before we get into the detail of how it will all work.

Mr Boylan: That is it. Thank you, Chair.

Mr McMurray: Thank you for coming in. A lot of my questions have been touched on, but I will maybe go through them again.

I have one quick thing to say. We were discussing the Water, Sustainable Drainage and Flooding Bill. I am not sure whether anybody else came into Stormont early this morning, but there was a big flood outside —.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): Was there some lying water in Stormont?

Mr McMurray: There were some lying waters. I was on my bike, and the irony was not lost on me.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): You will not need a shower later, then. That is the benefit of it.

Mr McMurray: I think that the universe was trying to tell us something. Certainly, something was trying to tell someone. I will start with the issues in the order that I have them, which may not necessarily be the order that they arrive in.

Will the hosepipe ban be expanded? I take it that it will then go through a pick-and-choose exercise from the list by NI Water and the Department. Is there a hierarchy of which are the worst and which are the best? Hosepipe bans are a soft touch, and I get that. You mentioned that consumer indications are that they are effective, but are they actually effective? I understand their importance and that they need to be expanded, tightened up and all the rest of it, but how sure are you that that will be the right way to do it?

Will it be a geographical thing as well? Will it be a case of saying, for example, "Silent Valley is running low, therefore, south Down will be affected. However, it is happy days at the reservoirs in the glens of Antrim" — I cannot remember their names. How will that work?

Ms Dutton: NI Water will be able to choose. In the past, our hosepipe bans have normally been for the whole of Northern Ireland, but NI Water has powers to choose by area, if need be. If some areas are particularly bad, it can impose different hosepipe restrictions. For the sake of argument, it could consider restricting power washers and things that use lots of water, or filling large paddling pools could be restricted in some areas but not in others. A ban may just be for the functions for which there is less usage. It will have that flexibility to do what, it feels, is necessary at the time, and the measures are quite effective.
We had a high-demand event in the past and introduced a hosepipe ban, and, because they can be introduced quickly, we found that it had an impact. Water usage drops quite considerably. Other actions that need to be taken from Northern Ireland Water's point of view, such as redistributing water supplies, but hosepipe bans have a considerable impact when they are brought in.

Mr McMurray: OK. That is good to know. I will move on to the SuDS. There was a good conference earlier in the year. It was very informative. I get the new build aspect of the policy. You mentioned retrofitting, which was interesting. However, how do you envisage the SuDS working in the new build? How much of a benefit will they be by not overworking or putting too much water into our waste water infrastructure system, which is where the issue is? Given that they will be in new builds, how much will they benefit the current waste water infrastructure? I know that you cannot do one without the other and that they are not directly linked, but, unfortunately, where the infrastructure is concerned, they are linked.

Mr Wightman: Just to be clear — you talked about this — the transformation project that we are trying to take forward is about testing retrofit and nature-based solutions in the urban environment in order to help Northern Ireland Water to address some of its issues, such as spills and out-of-sewer flooding. Even though it is on a small scale, instead of putting a concrete tank in the ground, it is about potentially managing the water on the surface or slowing it up before it gets into the sewers. That might be enough to stop a spill or to reduce a spill or flood. That is a positive thing for the existing network. It will free up a bit of capacity in and around the margins, yes, but the scale of the project means that that will be marginal.

As you mentioned, new developments are different. This project is about developments that have yet to take place. The move towards soft SuDS is about minimising the impact that the development will have from a climate, carbon emission and adaptation point of view. It will have particular elements, particularly from a hydraulic point of view. There are two types of loading from a sewerage point of view: the hydraulic load, which is tied into the rainwater getting into the system; and the population equivalent (PE) load, which is the foul load. SuDS will not help you with the foul load; it goes nowhere near the SuDS system. This project is about clean water development. There might be opportunities whereby, if, for example, a developer fully implements the SuDS management scheme approach and more or less keeps all the rainwater at source on site and the problem in that area happens to be a hydraulic issue in the network, that development could proceed because the systems are hydraulically neutral, if you like. However, most of the capacity constraints that Northern Ireland Water is faced with tend to be hydraulic and foul PE.

This policy will not free up capacity in or sort out the existing network. It will help and will future-proof future development, but I caution that it will do those other things. The retrofit stuff is different, because you are dealing with the existing network. The policy is about minimising the impact of future housing developments. As I said, it will be of benefit, particularly where surface water is concerned. You could have negative planning conditions, whereby water is taken on to a site from the public network. That has been done elsewhere. However, the policy is about new development and minimising the impact of future development.

Mr McMurray: Thank you. I get it, given the conference, and it seems to be effective, but it is good to disentangle it all, if that makes sense.

I appreciate that some of this has been touched on, so this may be more of a comment than a question. It relates to Mr Stewart's question on Northern Ireland Water's being able to adopt private drainage. I need to understand how that will be simple — maybe it will not be simple. Although it needs to be done, I need clarification on the process. Given that adopted roads and adopted sewers have been stories for so long and we hear about them nearly all the time, for the life of me, I need to get into the weeds of it, which we have not done, especially given that the exact costs are unknown.

There is one thing about Northern Ireland Water's power under clause 11, and I like the terms "miscommunication" and "misconnection", because I am not sure —.

Mr Boylan: I do not know how to communicate that.

Mr McMurray: I like that. Miscommunication can cause a lot of things. [Laughter.]

Mr Stewart: Especially here.

Mr Boylan: That is well recorded.

Mr McMurray: Why is that necessary? NI Water has powers to stop up and all the rest of it. How practical will it be? If someone — I will not say "wilfully" — knows that there is an issue and has decided not to change it of their own accord, how likely will they be to pay for it when it gets done over their heads? It may be for a later date, but how is it anticipated and legislated for? Are we making it easier for individuals to wilfully do that? You would think that, if they have done something by accident, they will think, "Oh flip, I will just sort that out myself", but I cannot see how dealing with it will be simple. Maybe it is not simple, and that is why we have to legislate for it.

Ms Clydesdale: The policy intent behind the power on miscommunications is to reduce pollution. The miscommunications cause pollution, so the policy intent is to reduce it.

Julie Ann, do you want to add anything?

Ms Dutton: I take the point that people might decide, "If you come in and carry out that work, we will not pay", but Northern Ireland Water will have procedures in place whereby it can recoup the moneys. It can go through those processes. It does that in other areas of its work, so it will have a procedure to recoup debt and will be able to do so. I take the point that it could be —.

Mr McMurray: I get the policy intent; of course I do. It is just about the policy practicalities. I am fully supportive, but I am trying to get my head around that point.

My last question is on the flood protection grants, which have also been touched on. Will any consideration be given to extending those to businesses? There was flooding in South Down in, for example, Downpatrick and Newry. Cathal, you know how difficult that was. The scheme is demand-led, so it is great to see it being legislated for. A lot of people in my constituency have availed themselves of it and found it useful. Granted, the process was not simple, but, once it was finished, it was well received. I imagine that other stuff like that would be well received by business owners too. Is any consideration being given to that, and how might a more permanent flood grant scheme for residents be progressed?

Ms Clydesdale: At the minute, and as I said in my opening remarks, the power in the Bill is just for a homeowner flood protection grant scheme, which means that it is for private residential homes. It does not include businesses. To move forward with the permanent scheme, regulations will be required, along with a consultation and business case. The fine detail of eligibility criteria will be included after we have done a post-project evaluation of the current pilot scheme.

Mr McMurray: OK. That is great.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): I have two questions that flow from Andrew's line of questioning. They are more for my understanding, and one of them is for Stuart. Am I right in saying that waste water can be defined by whether it is hydraulic or PE? "Hydraulic" relates to stuff that falls from the sky, sits around the place and then has to go somewhere. Is that right?

Mr Wightman: Largely, yes. It relates to when it cannot infiltrate the ground, but largely, yes.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): So far, so good. I am a new Chair. PE is foul water, which tends to be stuff that we put down our toilets. It has to go somewhere as well.

Mr Wightman: Yes.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): For my understanding, if we can find more of a solution for hydraulic water — is it called "hydraulic water"?

Mr Wightman: It is just storm water. NI Water refers to it as "storm water".

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): When there is a lot of storm water, the overflow is fed into PE drains, effectively. Does that cause a problem? Is that right? Is that how it works?

Mr Wightman: Let us rewind. Up until the late '70s, most of the rainwater and foul water went into combined sewers. In Belfast, a lot of those were old Victorian sewers. Since the '70s, storm water and foul water have been separated in all new housing developments. That is where the misconnection or miscommunication becomes an issue. You might have a garage with a pipe beside it, and you might think, "I will put my washing machine into that", but it might be a storm pipe. In a lot of cases, those storm pipes might end up in the combined sewer somewhere down the line, because the main sewers that are on public roads tend to be combined in a lot of cases. For the past 20 years, Northern Ireland Water has restricted that possibility. It is very rare that a new development connects surface water to the combined sewer.

Too much water getting into the system is a legacy issue. That is really what offsetting the storm water is about, even when it comes to the play park that you talked about. If you can get storm water out somewhere else, that might enable the storm water from the green space where you are putting the park to come in. That is the idea of the offsetting.

It is a legacy issue. You talked about overflows. We have things called combined sewer overflows. You might have seen the 'Spotlight' programme last December that highlighted the issues around greater Belfast and Belfast lough. The combined sewerage system is designed to spill, but it should spill only during very heavy rainfall.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): It still tends to spill into rivers.

Mr Wightman: Yes. You have an overflow, meaning that, once waste water in that sewer goes above a certain height, it goes into the river, but, at that stage, it is dilute. That is the way that those sewers and overflows have been designed. The problem is that they are spilling far too often. That is happening across the UK and Ireland. That is our challenge. You cannot keep putting bigger pipes into the ground. We are getting more and more intense rainfall. Given the fact that there is the same amount of rainfall in a shorter space of time, the systems cannot cope. That is where the blue-green place comes in. You hold the water back, and it is then all about slowing it down.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): OK. If I understand you correctly, SuDS and the policy intent behind them is to, effectively, soak up the hydraulic stuff so that it does not become an issue by getting mixed in and causing additional overflow into our rivers, even if it is diluted.

Mr Wightman: The point that you made about SuDS is really important. It is about managing it at source. Our sewerage systems have been designed —.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): It is about pushing it all backwards.

Mr Wightman: Legacy systems were about collecting it and chucking it down the catchment as quickly as you could, but that meant that you could then not cope downstream. SuDS are about managing it at source, letting some of it infiltrate the ground and some of it evaporate. It is about managing what is left on the site.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): Thank you very much. That was really useful.

Mr McNulty: What is the biggest challenge facing NI Water right now?

Ms Clydesdale: In relation to the Bill?

Mr McNulty: Yes. What is the biggest challenge that NI Water faces in relation to the Bill?

Ms Clydesdale: Its funding requirement.

Mr McNulty: The funding requirement to do what?

Ms Clydesdale: To deliver water and sewerage services.

Mr McNulty: What is the big issue in NI Water?

Ms Clydesdale: Waste water.

Mr McNulty: Waste water when it comes to capacity —

Ms Clydesdale: Yes.

Mr McNulty: — and the ability to treat it. To what extent would the Bill resolve that issue?

Ms Clydesdale: It would give Northern Ireland Water additional powers, which are set out in the Bill. It will help to address some of the capacity issues, as Stuart touched on, with the SuDS. The funding of Northern Ireland Water and the regulated price determination are separate from the Bill.

Mr McNulty: In the Assembly yesterday, a number of MLAs said that the Bill will resolve all the flooding issues and fix all Northern Ireland Water's issues. I scratched my head and thought, "No, that is not really the case, is it?". The perspective —.

Ms Clydesdale: The powers in the Bill are those that Northern Ireland Water has asked for and that it has been asking for for some time. Therefore, my understanding is that they will be helpful to Northern Ireland Water.

Mr McNulty: They will be helpful, but they will not resolve all the issues, such as NI Water's capacity to deal with discharge, water treatment and —.

Ms Clydesdale: They will not, but they will definitely assist and improve its processes and reduce flooding and pollution. That is the purpose of the Bill.

Mr McNulty: OK. They will reduce them to what degree? Can you say?

Ms Clydesdale: I cannot say at the moment.

Mr McNulty: OK. What is the current policy approach that has been adopted for SuDS developments? Is it not that the discharge must be less than that of greenfield areas?

Mr Wightman: Yes. There are two pieces of legislation for that. Under the Drainage Order, our Department will require a certain level of discharges into the new watercourses for new developments to greenfield run-off, which is 10 litres per second per hectare. NI Water will do the same for connections that are going into its storm network. That change was made in 2016, so under that legislation, NI Water now has the ability to say, "No" to a surface water connection. However, since then, as I mentioned, that has tended to happen through hard SuDS, because NI Water can adopt them. There is no approval body or adoption body for SuDS.

We should maybe have mentioned, Chair, the difference between hard SuDS and soft SuDS. No infiltration or evaporation happens with hard SuDS. The Bill will mean that soft SuDS will reduce the amount of surface water that comes from new developments more than hard SuDS.

Mr McNulty: OK. Has that not been mandatory until now but has just been encouraged?

Mr Wightman: No. A number of developers have gone out and innovated on their own terms and developed a number of those systems. There has been a pilot scheme —.

Mr McNulty: Will it not be mandatory subsequent to this either?

Mr Wightman: Pardon?

Mr McNulty: Will it not be mandatory subsequent to the passing of the Bill?

Mr Wightman: That is to be determined through the detailed policy regulations. Certainly, the policy intent is to mandate soft SuDS in the future. That is where we are heading. Just to caveat that, if you are building a development on the side of a hill, you will have to have a combination of hard and soft SuDS, because there are limitations to those systems. No one size fits all.

Mr McNulty: What is the approach in the South?

Mr Wightman: It is similar to ours in that it is done by local authorities, in the same way as happens in England and Wales. They are falling into the same issues as us with the maintenance of soft SuDS. England was to bring in schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 but did not, for that very reason. Maintenance and the funding the maintenance of the green bits, basically, is the challenge.

Mr McNulty: This may have been asked earlier, but the adoption of SuDS is contingent on the systems being constructed to appropriate standards, so what are the standards for SuDS in the North?

Mr Wightman: Standards are set out by the Construction Industry Research and Information Association (CIRIA). They have recently been revised. Certainly, the CIRIA guidance, which is the industry standard, is our starting point. CIRIA is an organisation that the industry funds. That is our first point of reference. My understanding is that England, Wales and Scotland also follow the procedures and guidance that CIRIA set out.

Mr McNulty: AECOM and Arup are leading with their ideas on SuDS.

Mr Wightman: We are working with both of them.

Mr McNulty: You are working with both of them.

Mr Wightman: I worked with them on the pilot project on retrofit that I talked about. We went over to Mansfield. Mark might have been here, but I gave a presentation to the Committee on the transformation project. It is retrofit now. Learning from the maintenance and even from the retrofit can feed into the project.

Mr McNulty: How does the retrofit work? Who is responsible for it?

Mr Wightman: Again, that is the point of the pilot. It really depends on where the intervention is situated. There are a few photographs in this document that I have. Instead of having a gully on the side of the road, you might replace five gullies with a rain garden, which acts like a massive gully. Obviously, we would need to work with our colleagues, and it would be hard to see how it would not be the Department — the authority that is responsible for roads and highways — that would be involved in the long-term maintenance of that gully. However, we are working with the councils and parks staff. If you were to build a detention basin in a park, we would be working with the parks staff, hopefully. If grass is being cut beside the basin, it would make sense for them to cut the grass in the feature as well. A lot of this will come down to partnership working.

It will all be very much dependent on where they are located, but I reassure you that we are working with stakeholders and will try to have testing.

The Housing Executive is another big stakeholder, given that there are a lot of green spaces in some of the big housing developments. Again, it is about working with it. We talked about long-term maintenance, which sounds grand, but a lot of the time, that is only about looking after the plants and cutting the grass. NI Water would remain responsible for the bits that go into the NI Water network, such as the hard pipes. It would be a similar situation for DFI Roads for the bits that go into the road drains. The whole point of the pilot is for us to work through those things in order to understand them.

Mr McNulty: Is the idea with retrofitting that some developers might consider that SuDS could minimise their density and could offset to another site where retrofitting could be incorporated?

Mr Wightman: I mentioned the conference that we had. As I said, if developers go with the traditional approach of having a feature at the end of a pipe network, the challenge in that is that those tend to use a lot more space, which is space that they could use for houses. It is the reverse of that in that, if the developers can incorporate the green space at street level or property level, they could see the opportunities to have more properties. That certainly came out of the feedback that I received.

Mr McNulty: Thank you very much, folks.

The Chairperson (Mr Martin): I have not had any other member indicate that they wish to ask questions, and I do not have any more. I want to reflect on the fact that it has been a really interesting session. I have learnt a lot, and your evidence will be really useful for us. I thank you for your time this morning and wish you all the best.