Image description: Aerial view of a reservoir. Image by Kelly / Pexels.
Government gives two new reservoirs the go-ahead
The Environment Secretary Steve Reed has seized control of the planning process to build two major reservoirs for the first time since the 1990s, in what the government is hailing as “a significant intervention to speed up delivery of much-needed reservoirs”. The two new reservoir projects in East Anglia and Lincolnshire have been awarded the status of “nationally significant”, meaning the project is so crucial that the planning process is escalated from a local level to the Secretary of State.
The reservoirs in Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire are currently pencilled for completion in 2036 and 2040 respectively and are projected by government to shore up water resources for more than 750,000 homes in England’s most water-stressed areas. They are estimated to cost almost £5 billion.
England’s water crisis
There are widespread droughts affecting the UK this spring, following the driest start to spring in 69 years. Water Minister Hardy claimed England could face drinking water shortages within a decade unless new reservoirs are built, with climate change, the rising population, housing developments and the construction of data centres which use large amounts of water as a coolant putting intense pressure on England’s water supplies. She warned UK would face ‘water rationing like the Mediterranean’ without new reservoirs.
The government is currently planning the building of nine new reservoirs to help protect against the impacts of drought by collecting excess rainfall during wet periods.
Dr Glenn Watts, water science director at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology told the BBC the new reservoirs “would provide more resilience to future droughts in a part of the country that is already dry and where there is high demand for water”.
Ofwat chief executive, David Black confirmed the regulator’s support of the measures, acknowledging £2 billion of development funding in its 2024 Price Review.
England’s water crisis needs more than just new reservoirs
However, Dr Hannah Cloke, a Professor of Hydrology at the University of Reading, warns these reservoirs alone won’t solve the England’s water crisis. Instead, we need a complete overhaul of the way we use water; plug leaks, cut down on waste and use water more than once in our homes and buildings before sloshing it down the drain. We also need to catch more water wherever it falls – not just in the river basins that are linked to big reservoirs.
According to Dr Cloke, In the UK, little research has been done to compare the costs of major infrastructure against a mass roll out of household-level water saving techniques, and such schemes are rare in Europe. However, Dr Cloke urges “The climate crisis demands that we think differently about water… In the UK, we will increasingly have to treat water as a precious resource, to be more carefully managed wherever we find it”.