Farming News - DEFRA: Government activates plan to protect consumers as severe drought declared in parts of England
News
DEFRA: Government activates plan to protect consumers as severe drought declared in parts of England
- Severe drought declared in parts of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, East Sussex and West Sussex
- Government steps up oversight of water companies in latest action to protect customers
- While customer supplies are uninterrupted, today's action follows an unprecedented period of extreme weather
Water companies in parts of England have been told to step up drought planning, as the Government takes measures to protect customer supplies in areas entering severe drought.
The Government has declared severe drought in parts of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, East Sussex and West Sussex. The South East and South West have experienced their driest April to September in over a century, impacting reservoir levels in that area.
While customer water supplies will be uninterrupted, declaring a severe drought ensures proactive steps are taken to safeguard water before any disruption occurs.
The Government’s plans include:
- Ministers instructing water companies to conduct daily monitoring of reservoir and river levels and tougher water quality monitoring;
- The Environment Agency to increase compliance checks on businesses that withdraw water from natural sources to ensure they are only taking permitted quantities of water; and
- Local Resilience Forums stood up to enable quick and effective development of support if required.
Alongside these steps, the Water Minister Emma Hardy has instructed the Environment Agency to prioritise protecting public water supplies in areas affected by severe drought, where there is an unavoidable trade-off between environmental rules and water supplies. This means allowing water companies to keep more water in depleted reservoirs.
Environment Secretary, Dame Angela Eagle, said:
“This level of drought is something we have not experienced for decades, so this government is stepping up our support and planning.
"We are working closely with water companies to protect public supplies in the areas affected, and I'd continue to urge everyone to think about how they can use water wisely over the coming weeks.
"Our strengthened Water Bill is all about taking back public control of our water companies. We are at the start of a decade-long journey to a very different water system, including nine new major reservoirs to secure supplies."
This morning’s announcement follows the latest meeting of the National Drought Group, which the Government has convened regularly since August to coordinate the response to unprecedented dry weather and hold organisations to account for their actions.
The expert group – which includes the Met Office, Government, regulators, water companies, the National Farmers’ Union, the Canal & River Trust, anglers, hydrologists, and conservation experts – has again urged people to use water wisely to protect water supplies.
Environment Agency Chief Executive, Philip Duffy, said:
“Record-breaking summer heat and severe drought have put our water resources under immense pressure.
“Recovery depends on both rainfall and how much water we use. We cannot change the weather, but water companies can act now. We expect them to follow their drought plans and take the steps needed to secure public water supplies.
“We are also asking everyone to use less water. That will leave more in our rivers and the environment, helping farmers and protecting wildlife and nature.”
Today’s action sits alongside long-term measures the Government is taking with water companies to strengthen the UK’s water resilience after decades of underinvestment. This includes investing £104 billion to upgrade water infrastructure, building nine new reservoirs across the country to increase water supply, and changing planning rules to make it easier to build reservoirs.
Notes to editors:
The latest change to severe drought status has been prompted by specific concerns for two major reservoirs – Ardingly in West Sussex and Wimbleball in Somerset.
Ardingly serves around 95,000 properties served by South East Water in Haywards Heath and Uckfield and the surrounding areas. Its total storage capacity currently stands at 19%.
Wimbleball serves around 300,000 properties across both South West Water and Wessex Water. It supplies water to South West Water customers in East Devon, North Devon, Somerset, West Dorset and Wessex Water customers in West Somerset. The current total storage capacity is 16%.
The Environment Agency would expect reservoir storage to be around 75% for this time of year.
There are also concerns for several smaller South West Water reservoirs serving homes in Devon and Cornwall.
Drift and Stithians supply 56,000 households in Cornwall while the Tottiford and Venford group supplies 47,000 households in Devon.
In the severe drought affected areas, the Government and the Environment Agency will:
- Move to daily monitoring of reservoir and river levels plus heightened water quality monitoring because of the lower dilution levels of sewage.
- Ensure more compliance checks on businesses that abstract water to make sure they are only taking what they are allowed.
- Stand up the Local Resilience Forums (LRF) as part of an enhanced incident response to coordinate multi-agency responses to localised emergencies caused by water shortages.
- The Environment Agency has granted South East Water’s Drought Permit application to reduce the amount of water Ardingly reservoir sends each day to the River Ouse by three million litres.
- The Environment Agency has granted South West Water’s Drought Permit application to reduce the amount of water it sends each day to the River Exe by nine million litres.
- Local MPs have been briefed on the status changes.
Actions by the Government include:
- A £65 million package to help farmers impacted by drought, including funding up to £15 million to build on-farm reservoirs, helping farmers to better store more water when it rains.
- £100 million to strengthen the country's capacity to respond to extreme weather and wildfires.
- Changes to abstraction licences for farmers, making it easier to apply for long-term licences and abstract high flows early.
- Continued water company work on resilience, including nine new reservoirs by 2050 as well as desalination plants and multiple water transfers to help secure future supplies.
- Changes in the Planning and Infrastructure Act to enable non-water sector companies to build reservoirs that are automatically considered as nationally significant infrastructure projects, which will speed up the approvals for new reservoirs.
- Continued work on mandatory water efficiency labelling; Defra will respond soon to a consultation on improving water efficiency in new homes.
- Continued work on nature-based solutions, such as restoring peatlands, creating more wetlands and planting more trees, to prevent flooding and hold more water in drought.
- Continued cross-government work on resilience to extreme weather, such as droughts, flooding, and wildfires.