FUTURE WATER SUPPLIES

Millions of people face water rationing and rising bills because Britain is heading for a drought crisis. A growing population and increasing demand for water means that the country is as much at risk as the Sahara Desert. Overcrowded South-east England is already suffering “severe water stress”, putting it in the same bracket as Saudi Arabia, North Africa, India and eastern Australia. Analysts now fear that within 20 years a “parched zone” will spread across the country from the Bristol Channel to the Norfolk coast and north of the Midlands.

Water industry experts are predicting that standpipes would become common across large areas of the country. Gary Smith, National Secretary for Water at the GMB union, said, “The laws of supply and demand mean that the consumer will pay through the nose for water where there is water stress, especially where we have expansion of housing. If we are not careful, this will be a licence to print money for the water companies. Rationing is likely to be needed."

A Water UK spokesman said of the warning, “This is not a realistic forecast at all. In this country we have one of the best water service provisions in the world. An enormous amount of work goes on between the water agencies, Environment Agency and Government to make sure we do have enough water. Each company will publish a water resource management plan in April, which will provide a thorough analysis of how our water use will change and how we can provide for it. We have great confidence that we will be able to provide a water supply for the period the report talks about and beyond.” (Source: Daily Express, Mar/08)

Thousands of acres of English countryside will be flooded to form a new network of reservoirs to help feed the country's thirst for water. The plans, drawn up by water firms to deal with rising demands and dwindling natural supplies as our climate warms and dries, are for seven new reservoir developments and six desalination plants, the first in Britain. Details of the developments are being kept secret to avoid public outcry and planning problems. But two big reservoirs are planned for near Abingdon and Canterbury, and that Beckton in east London has been earmarked for Britain's first desalination plant. Most of the other reservoirs are also planned for the South-east of England, and several desalination plants are proposed for the South Coast.

The plans are being submitted as part of the five-yearly review of water pricing. They have already provoked outrage from the Environment Agency, which says that water companies have not done enough to tackle leakage and should do more to curb demand. The plans are bound to cause public opposition. Resistance to the last round of reservoir building in the Sixties and Seventies gave rise to popular environmentalism in Britain, and forced construction to be abandoned. A report by English Nature, the Government's official wildlife watchdog, will reveal in December that more than 160 wetland nature reserves across the country are in danger of being sucked dry by increasing water abstractions.

Water companies say the blitz is necessary because Britain, and especially the South-east, is drying out as global warming takes hold. Demand for water is also increasing, particularly in the Home Counties. Some reservoirs across Britain are half empty after the driest August and September since records began - with rainfall less than a quarter of its normal levels. The Darwell reservoir, which serves Hastings, is only a third full, it is possible to walk on the bed of Scammonden reservoir near Huddersfield, river flows in Wales and the West Country are about a fifth of their normal levels for mid-October and Thames Water is pumping 14 million litres of water a day from an underground aquifer, used only in emergencies.

Scientists say the South-east in particular will get drier as global warming increases. But John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, recently announced plans for new house building in the region, including a 40-mile linear city in the Thames Gateway. One of the proposed reservoirs, at Broadoak near Canterbury, is designed to help meet this new demand. Another, a £600m bowl covering 3,500 acres of farmland on a floodplain near Abingdon, Oxfordshire, is designed to meet increasing demand from London, which is expected to grow by 700,000 people by 2016 - the equivalent of the population of Leeds moving to the capital. Dr Peter Spillett, the quality and environment manager at Thames Water, says that rainfall is lower in London than in Istanbul or Madrid.

The other developments outlined in the plans include an expansion of Southern Water's biggest reservoir, Bewl Water in Kent, and a £100m desalination plant at Beckton. A water industry source said, "Sooner or later people are going to want to know where these projects are going, and I don't think the industry realises how much of a furore this is going to create." Another factor contributing to water shortages is the rise in water use as households install more dishwashers, power showers, and jacuzzis. In Britain, the amount of water used by each household has doubled in 30 years.

Conservationists and the Environment Agency want water companies to concentrate on saving water by reducing the amount of leakage, and persuading the public to use less. Leakage has been cut by a third since 1996, but about a fifth of the water still seeps from pipes. In London the situation is particularly bad, with 30% of water leaking, partly because floods and drought have caused the capital's clay soils to shift, cracking ageing pipes. Appeals to save water have so far had little effect, with consumers far less ready to heed pleas from private companies than from the former public services.