Need to Conserve and Recycle Water in the South East

The South East could be short of one billion litres of drinkable water a day if we don't change our approach to water resources. The stark warning comes in a major report on water supply and demand published by the region's Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE South East) - at a time when floods, downpours and record monthly rainfalls are headline news.

"Floods do not compensate for drinkable-water drought conditions"

says CPRE South East chair Christine Drury.

"The phrase 'water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink' has taken on a new meaning in 2007. The Government and the water companies have not woken up to the new realities of water supply. Their strategies rely too much on building reservoirs that may never fill."

She added:

"Only when there is a change in approach will there be a reasonable chance of balancing supply and demand through the difficult and uncertain decades ahead. In our report we recommend the urgent adoption of new policies which conserve and recycle the south east's increasingly scarce and erratic water supplies.

After a good wet winter and devastating floods, we are in danger of being lulled back to sleep instead of thinking and behaving differently about water. The climate is not as equable as it was. Winter droughts and stormier, flashy rainfall and less predictable conditions may be here to stay as we face the effects of climate change."

In the report A Water Resource Strategy for the South East of England (PDF file: 2.85Mb) the author, CPRE South East hydrologist Graham Warren, calculates that by 2025 there could be demands of 5,447 million litres a day, when there were only 4,440 million litres a day available - a deficit of 1,007 million litres a day.

His figures are based on some one-in-10-year possibilities - but in the past 18 years alone there have been eight hosepipe bans in some parts of the region, bans which should come only once every 10 years.

Mr Warren calls for action to help manage demand.

"In particular, domestic metering and water-efficiency measures for new buildings and existing households need to proceed more rapidly.

To be fully effective, it requires the appropriate legislation and economic incentives to be put into effect as matters of the highest priority. It will also require the designation of much of the south east as 'water scarce'."

He is calling for the creation of a 'superbody' to oversee water supply and demand.

"Delivery may require the creation of a body with the expertise and resources to formulate an optimum strategy and the authority to direct the water companies in its implementation."

He says demand control would have to be supported by a tougher approach to conservation of the region's water resources and more challenging leakage targets, instead of putting faith in more reservoir capacity.

"We also urge an early review of the potential of wastewater reuse. More than half of the effluent processed in Hampshire, Isle of Wight, East and West Sussex and Kent is discharged to sea. This is a unique resource."

House building plans and other development should be approved only when water availability has been sorted out or it would lead to permanent hosepipe bans, he said.

- Ends -

CPRE/SE/26 Sept 2007

Contacts:

Christine Drury, Chair, CPRE South East, 01233 627087

Graham Warren, 01233 612265

Edward Dawson, CPRE South East Regional Director, 01252 877458

Pam Mason, CPRE Hampshire Administrator, 01962 843655