UK faces ‘water rationing like Mediterranean' without new reservoirs
Emma Hardy has suggested water shortages could hit households and businesses in the next decade if the Government fails to build new artificial lakes, as she unveiled plans to speed up the planning approvals process.
The Government has unveiled plans to legislate to bring reservoirs into the 'nationally significant' planning category, giving ministers instead of local councils the final say on whether projects can go ahead.
Environment Secretary Steve Reed has also intervened to designate two projects as 'nationally significant' in Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire.
'We have a problem in our country where we're not going to have all of the drinking water that we need by the mid-2030s because we simply haven't built the reservoirs required,' Ms Hardy told GB News.
She added: 'That's because the last government failed to get the infrastructure and the planning process was just way too complicated and bureaucratic.
'So what we're doing is we're taking control of building the reservoirs from the local planning authorities, putting that power into the hands of the Secretary of State so he can power through and deliver these, because if we don't, by the 2030s, we're going to be looking at water rationing like we have in the Mediterranean and that's unacceptable.'
Italian and Spanish authorities are among those which restricted water use last year, according to the Associated Press, with Catalonia facing a drought emergency when water reserves fell below 16%.
In England this year, the Environment Agency has found the North West and North East both saw their driest start to a calendar year since 1929, while the country as a whole endured its driest February to April period since 1956.
Ms Hardy had earlier told Times Radio that changing how authorities green-light reservoirs could 'unlock tens of thousands of new homes and we can make sure that everybody has the drinking water that they desperately need'.
She said: 'There are other things that we need to do to make sure that we have the drinking water that we need, and one of the other actions that we're taking is the £104 billion of record investment that's going into the water sector.
'This will help to reduce leaks from pipes by up to 17%, so that's another really important action that's needed just to make sure that everybody has the water that they need, because it's not just about building homes as well.
'We need water for growth – there are projects up and down the country where businesses are crying out for extra water that they need to make sure that they can get on with growing our economy, so this is a really important announcement and it's a beautiful win for nature as well.'
Asked about the reservoir projects' impact on water bills, Ms Hardy said the £104 billion was 'private investment' and added that 'bills have already increased'.
She said: 'I can completely understand why people are furious and angry about that, because it's like with any issue that you find – if you fix a problem when you first notice it, it doesn't cost you as much as if you leave it to get worse and worse and then you try and fix it, and that's what we've had under the Conservatives, they left the problems to get worse and worse.'
Water companies in England have committed to bringing new reservoirs online by 2050, in Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire, Somerset, Suffolk, Kent, East Sussex and the West Midlands, with the potential to supply 670 million litres of extra water per day.
The Fen Reservoir project between Chatteris and March in Cambridgeshire is set to supply 87 million litres a day to 250,000 homes, and to be completed in 2036.
The Lincolnshire reservoir south of Sleaford would provide up to 166 million litres a day for up to 500,000 homes, operational by 2040.
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