Cork City Council currently operates water services on an agency basis for Irish Water as part of a Service Level Agreement in the pre-2019 City boundary area, while Cork County Council continues to manage water and wastewater services in the extended boundary area. 9.3 The EU Water Framework Directive 2 outlines the overarching set of arrangements governing the management of water quality across Europe. The National Planning Framework (NPF) 3 recognises that some of the key national environmental challenges include the need to accelerate action on health risks to drinking water and treating urban wastewater. It recognises that good planning is critically important to the management of water resources. High level policy for the delivery and development of water and wastewater services is set out in the Department of Planning, Housing and Local Government’s document: Water Services Policy Statement 2018 – 2025 4 . The three themes identified are water quality, water conservation and futureproofing of assets. One of the main purposes of the Core Strategy section of this plan is to ensure that there is sufficient infrastructure to serve population targets for the City and that residential and employment growth are supported with the provision of water service infrastructure, including water supply and wastewater infrastructure. This is underpinned by Irish Water’s investment plans, which align with the Water Services Strategic Plan -A Plan for the Future of Water Services, 2015 (WSSP) 5 , that sets out strategic objectives for the delivery of water services up to 2040. The Irish Water Investment Plan 2020 to 2024 is currently being implemented. 9.4 Irish Water recently published the National Water Resources Plan (NWRP) - Draft Framework Plan 6 for public consultation, which identifies a move towards achieving a sustainable, secure and reliable public drinking water supply over the next 25 years, whilst safeguarding the environment.
It outlines how Irish Water intends to maintain the balance between the supply from water sources around the country and demand for drinking water over the short, medium and long-term. The next phase will be the preparation of Regional Water Resources Plans (RWRP), which will in turn inform future capital investment and operational plans. The relevant plan for Cork City will be the Southwest RWRP, which will outline the longer- term plan for the Cork City Water Resource Zone (WRZ). It is intended that each RWRP will apply the framework methodology to the regional group areas of water supplies and develop plan level preferred approaches for all water supplies within these group areas.
National Water Resources Plan (NWRP) The plan will set out how we can balance the amount of drinking water we can supply with the demand for water that is needed over the short, medium and long term.
Calculate the demand for water from homes, businesses, farms and industry now and into the future
Assess the amount of water we have available
Identify areas where there is not enough water supply to meet demand or where there are risks to water quality
SHOP
CAFE
SCHOOL
How climate change will impact our water
HOSPITAL
Develop a national plan to ensure there will be enough water to meet demand and address any risks to water quality
Develop a methodology to assess the need and options appraisal process we will use within our plan
S
Our three pillar approach will ensure we have a safe, secure, reliable and sustainable drinking water supply for everyone
Improve water ef ciency
Reduce leakage
Improve infrastructure
Source: Irish Water.
2 https://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/water-framework/index_en.html 3 https://npf.ie/ 4 https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/49364-water-services-policy-statement-2018-2025/ 5 https://www.water.ie/projects-plans/our-plans/water-services-strategic-plan/ 6 https://www.water.ie/projects-plans/our-plans/nwrp/
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Cork City Draft Development Plan 2022-2028
Volume 1 I Chapter 9
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