United Utilities has launched a unique new grant scheme aimed at helping charities to improve their local river catchment for the benefit of the community.

The CaST Account will help to encourage partnership working, bringing different people, ideas and interventions together to create multiple benefits for society.

United Utilities’ innovative CaST (Catchment Systems Thinking) approach, which looks at a river catchment as an entire system rather than a series of isolated issues, has already brought multiple benefits such as pollutant reduction and flood risk management along watercourses in Cumbria and Lancashire.

Now the company wants to extend the idea across the North West region by encouraging partnerships and community groups to get involved, with grants of up to £50,000 available.

United Utilities Environment Director Jo Harrison explained:

“We’re a water company, and the water environment is critical to our business and the society we serve. For more than 15 years United Utilities has been pioneering in our partnership approach to landscape and reservoir catchment improvements.

“The Government has set out its 25-year Environment Plan, to improve the quality of our environment, and now we have the drive to build back better after the coronavirus pandemic. Ofwat has indicated the importance of collaborative working in its Time To Act Together strategy. We are all working towards the same goals and that’s why we want to encourage other organisations across the North West by providing this financial backing.

“Through this approach we will utilise natural capital decision making to enable us to consider balancing the requirements for water resources, flooding, water quality and biodiversity. This in turn will allow us to provide greater benefits to customers through delivering wider environmental improvements, as well as making us more efficient through delivering work in partnership with others.”

Last year the River Petteril in Cumbria’s Eden Valley formed a pilot project which brought together a wide range of stakeholders including farmers, regulators and big businesses. United Utilities delivered enhanced monitoring for the whole catchment to identify the sources of phosphate pollution and collaborated with a steering group to identify the most cost effective interventions.

The result was a greater improvement in water quality beyond United Utilities’ own assets at a lower cost to customers. Furthermore, the collaboration allowed additional natural capital benefits to be incorporated at a catchment-wide scale, such as enhanced biodiversity, soil conservation and tree planting.

The application process for the CaST Account is now open. United Utilities wants to hear about projects which demonstrate:

• Engagement with nature: ability to demonstrate a social element to the activity, such as community engagement in delivery or educational focus.
• Promoting natural capital markets: ability to demonstrate engagement of commercial interests in at least some of their funding and/or using markets to bring together potential funders of interventions with those who can deliver them.

The water company is getting to ready to shortly go live with the CaST Forum. Co-created with stakeholders, the aim of the Forum is to provide a central hub for sharing ideas and a virtual marketplace for partners to access environmental funding. The interactive platform will host updates regarding the utility’s Catchment Systems Thinking (CaST) approach and its Drainage and Wastewater Management Plan (DWMP). United Utilities will also use the CaST Portal as an consultation space as it evolves plans and approaches.

The closing date for CaST funding applications is 16 April 2021 – click here for more information about how to apply.