Presidential roundtable summary: water infrastructure and asset health

Water sector resilience is a growing priority in England and Wales.

A changing climate, ageing assets, and rising public expectations are fuelling demand for water companies to proactively manage risks and invest for the long term.

Formalised standards clarify expectations, shape regulation, and maintain essential services in the face of disruption. Centrally set resilience standards for supply and wastewater could ensure that services remain robust and capable of recovery.

The current metrics used by the sector regulator, Ofwat, are backwards-looking and short term. They don’t address long-term system challenges.

And current requirements on water companies – for instance, to map certain assets, meet performance targets, gather information, and plan improvements – haven’t been linked.

The government’s 10 Year Infrastructure Strategy committed to developing infrastructure resilience standards. And the Cunliffe Review, published last July, outlined the clear need for progress.

The National Engineering Policy Centre (NEPC), in collaboration with the ICE and the Royal Academy of Engineering, held this roundtable on behalf of the UK Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra).

Focusing on the current gaps in resilience standards – and how to fill them – the discussion took place in November 2025 to inform elements Defra’s response to the Cunliffe review. The UK government has since published its white paper, ‘A new vision for water’.

Key discussion points included:

• The need for better data
• The potential impact of cascading failures and need for rigorous cross-sector testing
• Organisational resilience and adaptive planning
• The need for specificity and clarity, and the possibility of a risk-based framework approach
• The importance of public communication