Ensuring a sufficient – and dependable – water supply will be crucial to helping growth in East Anglia over the coming decades.
This was the message from Anglian Water chief executive Peter Simpson at a conference discussing the future growth of Norfolk.
The third How Should Norfolk Grow? conference at Norwich Research Park on Thursday focused on housing and sustainable development.
Keynote speaker Mr Simpson said Anglian Water would be investing £517m in Norfolk in the next five years, including on a new filtration system at the Heigham water treatment works in Norwich to enable better water abstraction from the River Wensum.
The utilities company is leading Water Resources East, a project to assess the region's overall water requirements and how they can best be met.
Mr Simpson said: 'Innovation and collaboration will clearly deliver the best results for the environment and communities.'
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