The Midlands has seen the driest autumn period since records began; in the West Midlands, the past year has been the driest on record. In Shropshire, a lack of rainfall over the last six months has meant winter cereals are failing to germinate. Some livestock farmers are already feeding winter forage stocks and bracing themselves for a difficult few months ahead.

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Towards the end of last month, as substantial rain had still failed to materialise, growers in parts of Shropshire, which is in one of the midlands counties worst hit by continuing drought, along with Warwickshire and Leicestershire, were desperately irrigating oilseed rape over concerns it could fail. Some were even planning contingency spring crops, should their winter crops fail.

The area around Shropshire’s county town, Shrewsbury, has seen just a fraction of its average rainfall over the past months. Local agronomists have said the region needs a period of rain desperately, that, even if a small amount of rain did fall, there is still no underlying moisture in the soil and wind would dry it back out before it could benefit crops. River and groundwater levels in the region remain incredibly low.

Many parts of the UK remain in drought, with several Eastern and South-Eastern counties facing the possibility of water restrictions next year if water levels are not replenished over the winter. North Shropshire has only received 64 per cent of its average rainfall.

Environment Agency spokesperson Catherine Ellis said, “Some water abstraction licences already contain conditions which restrict abstractions when river levels fall.  We are not currently proposing to impose any additional restrictions to licences, although to give an idea of how dry exactly it is, across the Shropshire Plains river catchment area the rainfall level we have seen over the past 12 months would only be expected once in every 200 years.”

Elsewhere in the country, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, parts of Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire, and west Norfolk are still in drought, according to the Environment Agency, because their groundwaters have not adequately recharged.