Water UK warns a lack of water risks blocking more than a million new homes

(by Verity Mitchell)

England will only have enough water for a fraction of the new homes the Government has pledged to deliver this Parliament. That’s according to analysis by Public First, commissioned by Water UK. 

It found that England will only have enough water for 420,000 of the Government's target of 1.5m homes. In some parts of the country, there is only a 2% buffer between what is available and what is used. Water UK argued that assumptions about demand reduction should reflect real-world experience and not be unreasonably optimistic.

Water UK stated that England has been increasingly unable to supply new businesses and homes with the water they need for two reasons:

• Past governments have blocked applications to build new reservoirs, while planning rules continue to slow down new water infrastructure.

• New water resources, such as reservoirs, can only be designed on the basis that people and businesses use much less water than they actually do. Rules also prevent companies from building to meet future demand like the growing use of water by data centres.

  
  

Water UK’s recommendations in a new paper, Barriers to project delivery, included granting water schemes the same fast-track planning route as used for Universal Studios, where the process was cut from two years to six months, and instructing Natural England and the Environment Agency to use available scientific evidence rather than demanding unnecessary additional assessments based on hypothetical risks.

Household water use is falling more slowly than government targets assume. Water UK also projected that business demand will rise as water-intensive industries such as data centres come online – yet the Government assumes that business demand will fall by 9% by 2037-38.