River Action: review abstraction to prioritise people and rivers over golf courses

(by Karma Loveday)

Clean water campaigner River Action has called for all abstraction licences to be reviewed and updated, and for industrial users to have clear plans to drive water efficiency – as competition for water intensifies and hosepipe bans affect 40% of households. It said: “We cannot allow essential public water supplies, sustainable food production and healthy rivers to lose out to wasteful commercial users because the Government failed to plan ahead.”

A River Action investigation found 43tn litres of water abstraction a year is licensed to commercial users across 14,128 licences in England and Wales. This dwarfs the 6tn litres annually abstracted by water companies for public water supply. While many commercial abstractions support essential activities including food production, renewable energy generation and manufacturing, the campaigner pointed out that many licenses were issued “for a very different climate, before the rise of intensive agriculture, modern industry and large-scale digital infrastructure such as data centres. As rivers come under increasing pressure from pollution, over-abstraction and more frequent droughts, it is vital that all licences, including those for non-essential commercial activities, are reviewed to ensure they reflect today’s environmental realities and priorities.”

River Action urged that essential public water supplies, food production and healthy rivers must always take priority over non-essential uses. It highlighted in example the country’s 435 golf courses that have a combined permitted abstraction of 192m litres per day. This is equivalent to 8.8bn litres annually, which is enough to supply the average daily water consumption of more than 550,000 households.

River Action further called on the Government to introduce a fully-funded national water resilience plan which should include: fixing leaks; building reservoirs; restoring wetlands and floodplains; modernising homes, businesses and public buildings to capture, recycle and store water; improving water efficiency across agriculture and industry; and ensuring all major new developments are water efficient. Moreover, it said water companies must be held to account for cutting leaks and accelerating infrastructure investment.

James Wallace, the activist’s chief executive, said: “The UK isn’t running out of rain. It’s running out of political excuses. Water is polluted, leaked and wasted, while the public is told to use less.”