Executive Summary
Axion Solutions was commissioned by the Environment Agency (EA) to deliver a cornerstone screening study within the wider Local Resource Option (LRO) programme: the LRO Screening Study in Swaffham (Mid-Wissey), Norfolk. This project serves as a pilot framework to transform how farmer-led groups identify, evaluate, and mobilise local water resource schemes to secure long-term food security and environmental protection.
A pivotal component of this project was the Water Abstractors Group (WAG) Workshop held on October 28, 2025, which served as the primary co-design event for the Mid-Wissey catchment. The commission addressed a critical systemic challenge: the urgent need for water resilience among high-value irrigated arable producers facing the expiry of time-limited abstraction licences in 2027. Axion delivered a step-change intervention, combining:
- Strategic Baseline Assessment: A comprehensive water supply-demand balance across 5,120 hectares of commercially focused farmland.
- Multi-Criteria Screening and Ranking: A transparent, scalable methodology to prioritise options such as farm storage reservoirs, water sharing, and water recycling.
- Stakeholder Co-Design: Structured engagement with seven large-scale farms and a major horticultural nursery to ensure local ownership of results.
The result is a coherent, evidence-based roadmap that identifies the top three deliverable LROs, providing a "springboard for implementation" that aligns agricultural productivity with the protection of sensitive sites like the Breckland Forest SSSI.
Strategic and Policy Context
Following the "Farm to Fork Food Summit" in May 2023, the Prime Minister committed to supporting farmer-led groups in identifying local water resource schemes. These LROs are defined as water resource solutions owned and operated by the abstractors they benefit, designed to improve resilience at a local scale.
This ambition is critical in Eastern England, which is one of the driest regions in the UK, receiving less than 700mm of rainfall annually. The area is the UK’s chief cereal-growing region and a hub for market gardening, yet it faces significant climate pressures, including record-breaking summer temperatures and high convective rainfall variability. With the Environment Agency flagging potential licence reductions to prevent environmental damage, Natural England and the EA required a delivery partner capable of technical water resource modelling, financial appraisal, and complex stakeholder facilitation
Key policy drivers included:
- The 2027 "Licence Cliff": The majority of abstraction licences in the Mid-Wissey catchment are set to expire in 2027, creating significant business uncertainty.
- Environmental Destination: The Environment Agency’s default position is to reduce abstraction to protect "poor" or "moderate" status water bodies, making alternative local resource options (LROs) essential.
- High-Value Production: The region supports 20% of the UK’s vegetable distribution, which peaks significantly during December, creating a high-stakes requirement for reliable water.
The Challenge: Identifying Contacts Across a Fragmented Landscape
The commission addressed a challenge recognised across the Defra group: while individual farms have historically managed their own water, the future of sustainable abstraction requires collective, landscape-scale infrastructure.
- Regulatory Pressures: Many farms in the Mid-Wissey catchment face significant reductions in surface water licences by 2027.
- Ecological Sensitivity: The study area is situated around the Breckland Forest SSSI and Foulden Common SSSI, necessitating LROs that do not further degrade "poor" or "moderate" status water bodies.
- Fragmented Data: Prior to this study, there was no shared logic connecting individual farm water demand with collective supply opportunities like managed aquifer recharge or water rights trading.
- Climate Extremes: Met Office data highlights that Eastern England suffers from high sunshine duration and significant "rain-shadow" effects, leading to high evapotranspiration rates during critical growing seasons for potatoes, onions, and carrots.
Specific Challenges Identified in the WAG Workshop:
- Regulatory Uncertainty: Farmers flagged regulatory barriers and a lack of clarity regarding the EA's stance on water sharing as major hurdles.
- High-Stakes Production: The vegetable sector is under extreme pressure in December, with 20% of the UK’s distribution occurring during this month.
- Climate Variability: Met Office data reveals the region suffers from high sunshine duration and convective summer storms, leading to intense rainfall events that must be captured and stored for dry periods.
Axion’s Research-Led Approach: “Front-Loaded” Engagement
Axion employed a systems-engineering workflow to ensure the project remained on track despite a condensed timeline. The strategy focused on "front-loading" stakeholder engagement to secure buy-in from the Water Abstractor Group (WAG) early in the process.
Methodological Innovations:
- Rigorous Cadence: The team maintained weekly progress reports (due every Thursday at 17:00) and fortnightly progress meetings with the EA team,
- 5-6 Year Forecasting: Agricultural use was forecasted over a 5-6 year horizon to provide a realistic baseline for current and future demand.
- Strategic Modelling: Axion utilised month-by-month demand/supply models to test the feasibility of "clustered sharing" and conducted threshold analysis (Q30) for high-flow abstraction to understand supply security over the last 20 years.
The Six-Stage Process
Axion utilised a structured six-stage process to ensure the project remained technically rigorous and stakeholder-focused.
- Define Scope & Objectives: Agreeing on goals and identifying the 5,120-hectare study area.
- Information Gathering: Collecting climate data, abstraction licences, and agricultural demand.
- Screening: Removing unfeasible options from the "Longlist".
- Ranking: Scoring and weighting the remaining options based on stakeholder preference.
- Detailed Evaluation: Modelling yield, cost, and environmental impacts for the top three options.
- Implementation Planning: Identifying routes, required consents, and funding pathways.
The “WAG Works”: Stakeholder Co-Design
The WAG Workshop (October 28, 2025) was the engine of the project, facilitating direct collaboration between Axion (Project Manager Henry S and Project Officer David H), the EA, and WAG Leads.
Workshop Objectives and Outcomes:
- Primary Challenges: Stakeholders identified seasonal pressure and infrastructure limitations (pumping, storage, connectivity) as critical concerns.
- Scaling Local Practices: The group discussed formalising informal collaborations, such as joint pumping or coordinated irrigation scheduling.
- Water Sharing Mandate: In line with the specification, Water Sharing was pre-selected as a core component of the final options.
- Weighting Discussion: The group explored weighting methods, including Equal Weighting and Pairwise Comparison, to ensure the ranking results reflected local operational realities.
LRO Screening and Ranking: Delivering Targeted Options
Axion presented a suite of potential LROs at the workshop, ranging from source and sharing options to storage and demand management.
Prioritised Options from the WAG Workshop:
- Clustered Water Sharing: Feedback suggested bilateral agreements between neighboring farms are often more deliverable than group-wide approaches.
- High-Flow Winter Abstraction: Capturing winter peaks for storage in Farm Storage Reservoirs. A 10% flow limit was identified as a critical environmental safeguard for this option.
- Wastewater Recycling: A major opportunity was identified to reuse Quorn’s wastewater discharge as a sustainable irrigation source.
- Managed Aquifer Recharge: Storing surplus water in aquifers for use during periods of scarcity.
Impact, Value, and Outcomes
The study shifted the focus from individual survival to collective catchment resilience.
- Success Metric: The WAG group identified that certainty of water availability was the most significant measure of success for this project.
- Financial Readiness: By applying life-cycle cost analysis over a 15-year return period, Axion provided the financial evidence needed to justify significant capital investment in infrastructure like reservoirs.
- Environmental Legacy: The study identified solutions that reduce pressure on the Stringside Stream, supporting the EA's mission to protect and improve the water environment.
Delivery Lead and Programme Context
The project was delivered under the Local Resource Option Screening Study Fund. Project Lead Henry Sanford provided the strategic oversight to ensure all data—from abstraction licences provided by Izzy Ashcroft to Environmental Destination figures—was integrated into a robust, accessible final report. The project ensures that as the 2027 licence renewals approach, Norfolk’s farmers are equipped with the evidence to invest, grow, and protect the environment simultaneously
Reflections and Long-Term Legacy
The Mid-Wissey study serves as a replicable blueprint for the parallel LRO studies in Lakenheath, Brandon, and Fakenham.
Key learnings for future legacy include:
- Bilateral Focus: Recognising that smaller, clustered agreements are often more deliverable than group-wide approaches.
- Holistic Management: Identifying that LROs can serve as flood prevention schemes, creating "win-win" scenarios that can access additional funding streams.
- Front-Loading Complexity: By shifting Modelling and Evaluation (Stages 3 and 4) earlier, the team ensured enough time was available for the technical rigour required for high-flow threshold analysis
