A national hosepipe ban should be implemented as a national priority alongside mandatory water metering across the UK by the end of the decade.
That’s the key message infrastructure advisers have given the government as the nation braces for a drought that threatens major disruption to the nation. If action is not taken now, the UK could face a future of queuing for emergency bottled water “from the back of lorries”.
The National Infrastructure Committee (NIC) warned the government four years ago that considerable new investment in the country’s water supply equipment would need to be made by the 2030s. have made some improvements, almost 3 billion liters of water are still lost every day.
Plugging these leaks will require an investment of around £20 billion, Sir John Armitt, chairman of the committee, told the Observer this weekend. Failure to invest now will mean, he added, more than double the cost of delivering bottled water to UK residents by lorry as increasingly frequent droughts grip the country.
“You have to pay for it, one way or another,” he said. “That could be investing in new reservoirs or moving water around the country, as well as stopping leaks.” Industry sees water metering as the best tool to reduce water use – the UK has the highest usage in Europe. It is estimated that only half of homes in England and Wales have been fitted with water meters, but these customers use 33 liters a day less than the national average of 141 liters a day.
The West Reservoir in North London, just before the two hottest days of the year. Photo: Tolga Akmen/EPA
The NIC’s call was supported by the Rivers Trust, which was one of the key agencies at the emergency meeting of the National Drought Group called by the government last week as dry conditions spread across England .
Mark Lloyd, of the Rivers Trust, said action should be taken well before the end of the decade. “There must be a nationally coordinated publicity campaign to reduce water consumption and account for universal water,” he said. “Low flows in rivers are disastrous for wildlife and ultimately we need to take much more care of this incredibly precious resource.”
Mark Owen, of the Angling Trust, said hose bans should be extended across the country, after Southern Water became the first company to ban them on the Isle of Wight and Hampshire on Friday.
“We need to see these bans proactively introduced in many more places,” Owen said.
He criticized the lack of government planning for extreme weather. “There is no strategic, coherent and joint approach. The reaction is always knee-jerk. What happens when we get to that stage, when it’s very dry and hot, is that all of a sudden usage increases as people fill up pools and water their gardens.”
Tom Bradshaw, vice president of the National Farmers’ Union, said more investment in irrigation water, farm reservoirs and a better plan to manage water resources was needed. “The lack of rain means crops such as sugar beet and maize are showing signs of stress, while there are challenges for farmers who need to irrigate field vegetables and potatoes. The dry weather has also severely hampered the grass growth, which could affect the supply of fodder for the winter.”
Critics say the government has had plenty of warning but appears to have taken no action.
“What we’re seeing now is that climate impacts in terms of more extreme weather events are occurring more frequently and at a greater magnitude than predicted,” said Martin Baxter of the Institute of Management and Environmental Assessment. “We really need to be more resilient to what we know is on the way.”
A conglomerate of government bodies said major plans were being prepared to improve water storage and transfer in England and Wales. In 2019, Ofwat, the Environment Agency (EA) and the Drinking Water Inspectorate jointly created a £500m scheme called Rapid (Regulators’ Alliance for Advanced Infrastructure Development).
“We are now investigating different schemes with the aim of implementing the most promising ones in a couple of years,” said Paul Hickey, Rapid’s chief executive.
Among the projects being considered are a series of new reservoirs that could be built in different parts of the country and schemes that would allow engineers to move water from the north of England, where there are no supply efforts, any to the south. This would involve using the River Severn and the Grand Union Canal as fresh water conduits that would ease the situation in the south of England, which has been hardest hit by the drought.
These schemes will cost billions of pounds, however, and are unlikely to be implemented in the next decade.
July was the driest month on record since 1911, with just 24% of the amount of rain expected in an average July, according to Met Office data. All areas of the country are affected, but in the south and east in particular conditions are critical, with rainfall this July just 14% of a July average over the decade to 2020.
The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Environment rejected the call for mandatory water metering.
A spokesman told the Observer:
“The water companies have the duty to guarantee the supply. That’s why we continue to challenge those with a poor track record on leaks and are working to ensure they introduce new infrastructure, such as reservoirs and water transfers. We are also advancing measures to support water efficiency in households.”