This section places water undertakers under a duty to produce water resources management plans and to publish and consult upon those plans. The duty requires that undertakers plan for demand in the medium and long term and for how to meet that demand. Water resource management plans will be subject to annual review and have to be revised every five years, or in any case where the annual review indicates a material change in circumstances or the Secretary of State directs that a revised draft should be prepared. There are powers for the Secretary of State (or the Assembly) to prescribe in a direction the matters that plans must address and the form that they are to take. Licensees (i.e. new entrants to the competitive regime for the supply of water) have to provide information required by undertakers to prepare their plans. The section also sets out the procedures for publication and consultation that must be followed in the production of these plans.
350.Provisions in this section are devolved to the Assembly.