Planning Can Require Free Drinking Water: How “Public Realm” Rules Could Fix the Last Mile

The last mile problem is designed into developments

UK cities keep building “public realm” that functions like retail: you’re welcome to stay as long as you keep spending.

Hydration is one of the clearest signals. If you can’t get water without buying it, public space becomes conditional.

Planning policy already has the language

London’s planning framework has explicitly referenced incorporating social infrastructure such as public toilets and drinking water fountains in development, where appropriate.

Separately, material discussing the draft New London Plan has described a policy direction that development proposals should ensure provision and future management of free drinking water at appropriate locations in new or redeveloped public realm.

Developer contributions can include drinking fountains

Planning obligations guidance used in London contexts has even listed provision of public drinking fountains as an example of an obligation that can be secured via planning mechanisms.

In plain English: it’s possible to make free water part of the “what good looks like” package, the same way we treat lighting, seating, crossings, and accessibility.

Why it still doesn’t happen everywhere

Because it’s nobody’s priority unless it’s explicitly requested:

• developers focus on visible, profitable features
• councils are overstretched
• maintenance responsibility becomes a sticking point
• water is treated as “optional extra” instead of basic function

What Freee Water does while planning catches up

Planning reform is slow. People are thirsty now.

Freee Water acts as a practical bridge:

• deliver hydration where new developments haven’t built it in
• prove demand and footfall benefit
• create public expectation so planners and councils can justify “make it permanent”

The “easy win” angle for councils and BID areas

If a council or BID wants to show tangible improvement quickly, hydration is one of the lowest-friction public goods:

• it’s visible
• it’s used immediately
• it improves dwell time
• it reduces the “paywall feeling” of public space

Free drinking water can be designed into public realm through planning, but the delivery gap is real. Freee Water can operate in that gap, and help turn “policy language” into lived reality.