Water Resources West are delighted to announce Christine Snell is joining its CEO group to represent the interests of agriculture, horticulture and other sectors which abstract water outside of the public water supply system.

Ensuring growers can access water in the future is crucial for our food security and agricultural abstractors are significant stakeholders in many waterbodies and catchments across the country.

Under the National Framework for water resources, regional planning is required to ensure the needs of agriculture are taken account of in meeting the challenges of growth, alongside improving the environment, an increasing population and climate change in these places. To do this effectively agriculture needs a strategic voice within each regional planning group that can speak for the needs of farmers in their area. They can bring knowledge of the sector to bear on the challenges facing the groups and help work through the solutions to deliver for food production as well as other needs.

Christine is the perfect person to take on this role with her previous experience of working with food manufacturers and the agriculture community.  She is a partner and business director in AJ & CI Snell: one of the UK's leading fresh and frozen ​fruit growers​ and a member of the Berry Gardens Co-Operative that is the largest producer/supplier ​of soft fruit in the UK​.  She also has a small herd of pedigree Hereford cattle.

Christine's has direct experience of water resources matters: her business holds abstraction licences in the lower Wye catchment, has on-farm reservoirs​ and she has experience with high-efficiency irrigation practices​. As a Justice of the Peace, she has experience of hearing abstraction licence compliance cases. Christine also holds an Associateship of the Royal Agricultural Societies and is a former Governor of Harper Adams University.

 Dan Rogerson, independent Chair of Water Resources West said: "We're thrilled that Christine will be joining our board and we're looking forward to her help in ensuring the needs of agriculture are taken into account in our regional planning.  It's really important that we look at the water needs of the whole community including agriculture, industry, the power sector and the wider community of non-public water supply customers as well as the needs of water company customers.  Christine's appointment is a great step towards meeting that goal."

 Christine added: "I'm delighted to be joining the top-level governance and I am confident a great deal can be achieved working on behalf of the agricultural and horticultural sectors. It's a critical time for farmers and growers to secure their water resilience as the climate is changing".

Water Resources West (WRW) is a group of abstractors, their representatives and their regulators. Collectively, they work together to ensure the sustainability of water resources, considering wider societal needs, environmental improvement and working across sectors.   They've recently published a draft regional water resources plan which can be found at https://waterresourceswest.co.uk/.