Enabling Water Smart Communities

Competition: Breakthrough 2: Transform

Amount awarded: £5,535,000

Led by: Anglian Water

Partners: Thames Water, United Utilities, Arup, University of Manchester, University of East Anglia, Anglian Centre for Water Studies, Community Land Trust Network, Centre for Local Economic Strategies, Dark Matter Labs, KWR, London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Clarion Housing Group, Future Homes Hub, Taylor Wimpey, Thakeham Group, Suffolk County Council, Cambridge Water, Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water, Severn Trent Water, Southern Water

Estimated completion date: June 2026

Water cycle tag: Customers and communities

See project updates on the Enabling Water Smart Communities website or LinkedIn page.

There remain significant challenges to customers, communities and the environment from frequent flood events, sustained droughts and impacts on water quality.

Housing development in its current form and rapid growth will further augment these challenges, increasing demand on water and wastewater services to an unsustainable position

Integrated Water Management (IWM) provides a solution by combining infrastructure, technologies, policies, and behaviour change initiatives to improve lives through co-ordinated water management.

IWM is rarely delivered due to ongoing stewardship issues, static regulatory and policy standards and lack of affordability.

This project will take an innovative approach to tackling these by:

• Rethinking assets: Develop and test innovative IWM design and asset management to support new stewardship models;
• Rethinking roles: Challenge regulatory and policy standards to support stakeholders;
• Rethinking value: Understand stakeholder motivations to develop financial models to unlock new sources of investment, and realign existing sources, to deliver affordable IWM.

“This project is urgently needed to bring together the wide range of development partners to identify and break down barriers to integrated water management. It is essential that we come together at a time when water demand is only going to continue through both growth and climate change; to demonstrate a replicable approach for future sustainable development.”

George Warren, Integrated Water Management Lead, Anglian Water

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Update from the project (July 2025)

We have selected and commenced the following Tranche 2 enabling action projects:  

• Water Reuse Whole Life Costs, a supplementary project to the completed reuse business case (CAPEX) project, will provide OPEX and carbon analysis for reuse systems at varying development scales and densities.  

• New Standardised Environmental Incentives project aims to define and implement a fair, scalable, and impactful incentive model that benefits developers and the environment.  

• Higher Quality SuDS, building a case for high-quality SuDS by assessing their added value in new developments, including impacts on property value, buyer preferences, and broader economic benefits such as flood risk reduction, water quality, placemaking, and biodiversity.  

Project Outputs: Case Study Dashboard Integrated Water Management Studies (IWMS) review Community-led water stewardship ‘Water Efficiency and Reuse in Housing: Design guide for a changing climate’ Summary of Water Sector Environmental Incentives (2025-2026 Charging Period) EWSC Independent Water Commission response Insights Articles: Making Water Smart Communities work: Lessons for community engagement from six in-depth case studies, insights article by UEA. Sustainable water systems and practices for new housing, insights article by University of Manchester 

Priorities for remainder of 2025 will be: Finalise the future Operating Model, identifying the approach for maximising long-term impact of our findings and ensuring continued value beyond the project’s completion.