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RAPID, together with Anglian Water, Northumbrian Water and Yorkshire Water jointly commissioned a report from CEPA and Agilia to consider the legal and commercial models that could facilitate the delivery of multi-sector reservoirs (MSRs) or MSR systems.

MSR systems are collections of reservoirs and associated developments, that work together on an integrated basis to provide multiple benefits to multiple stakeholders and to the environment. Such systems have the potential to provide such benefits more cheaply than the alternative of several single-purpose schemes, and to provide additional benefits to users and non-users alike.

CEPA and Agilia were tasked with assessing the financial and legal barriers to the development of MSR systems, and with developing a set of models that would allow the delivery of such systems while allowing third parties to participate.

We considered how models that already existed within the water sector could be extended to accommodate third-party funding from a range of non-water sector stakeholders, such as agriculture and the power sector. And we considered how such models can be adapted to maximise carbon and biodiversity benefits.

The key challenge we sought to resolve as part of the study, was how to enable third-party financing of large-scale infrastructure projects like reservoir developments, that relied of funding from a wide range of large and small stakeholders. This work benefitted from our expertise tackling challenging issues related to infrastructure and green financing, drawing on our experience working for regulators, infrastructure investors and regulated utilities.