Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, pursuant to the Answer of 2 November 2015 to Question 13491, if she will make it her policy to designate all the areas supplying aquifers used for drinking water as Source Protection Zones 1.

Source Protection Zones identify the area of an aquifer that provides the water abstracted at the drinking water supply borehole. Source Protection Zones 1 (SPZ1) are the area within which pollution would take less than 50 days to reach an abstraction point and where the consequences of groundwater pollution would therefore be greatest. They are used by the Environment Agency as a tool for regulation. The Environment Agency will not permit drilling for oil or gas in an SPZ1. Outside SPZ1s the Environment Agency will require a site specific risk assessment and will only permit drilling for oil or gas if it is satisfied that there is no significant risk to supplies of drinking water and no unacceptable impact on groundwater.